The following article was researched and written by Anthony Barnes, one of the alumni of 56 WRS assigned to the Avionics section.
Tony has also written an intensive article about the RB-57F's. I have received the four files as they are so large ( over 2 megs) we had to split them up so he could email them to me. These files have been loaded up on the Yahoo Groups account under 56wrs. They are there for your viewing. Thank you Tony Barnes for your fine research and compilation of the history behind these aircraft.
In reference to the Chernobyl incident in Tony's writings below, there is a recent web site that gives an excellant motor bike tour with pictures through the Chernobyl area this spring. Elena's web site received over 3 million hits in the first two months. I have located her new sponsership link and here it is for your viewing. Elena's Web site.
When the Air Force reorganized the major commands again in June 1992, all Air Force Weather reverted to the new Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) at Offutt AFB, NE and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) with representation at each major command headquarters, e.g. Headquarters Air Combat Command at Offutt AFB, NE or Headquarters PACAF at Hickam AFB, HI.
The last remaining active-duty Air Weather Service functions folded into the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) at Eglin AFB and Hurlburt AFB in Florida. Many of the WC-130B/E functions we knew at Air Weather Service are now AFSOC functions at the 720th Special Tactics Group and 10th Combat Weather Squadron. These Air Weather Service specialists wear gray berets and deploy with other Special Forces units on any of the Pave Low MH-53J and MH-47E Chinook helicopters, EC-130E ABCCC Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Centers, EC-130E Commando Solo/Rivet Rider communications broadcast aircraft, EC-130H Compass Call/Rivet Fire electronic countermeasures aircraft, MC-130E/H Combat Talon transports, HC-130H Combat Shadow tankers and AC-130H/U Spectre Special Operations aircraft.
The famed Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico, and the 54th and 55th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron Storm Track WC-130B/E functions were dissolved briefly from active duty, and the Air Force reconstituted the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron under the 403rd U.S. Air Force Reserve Wing at Keesler AFB, Biloxi, MS. The 53rd WRS received ten WC-130H models and maintained twenty reserve flight crews for hurricane and typhoon missions and some atmospheric research mainly in the Northern hemisphere worldwide. Recently, Marietta Georgia delivered the first two C-130J type aircraft with their curly fries propellers to the 53rd WRS nominally as WC-130Js although these aircraft are not initially mission-ready. See Hurricane Hunters in any search engine search window.
The Early Years: The United States Air Force converted ten of the original Boeing Airplane Company model C-135B cargo aircraft in 1960 to Air Weather Service WC-135B configuration in 1961. Five of the first ten aircraft went to the 55th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at McClellan AFB, Sacramento, California, and the second five of these ten WC-135Bs went to the 56th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Yokota Air Base, Tokyo, Japan. Boeing Military Airplane Company delivered all ten aircraft to the then-Military Airlift Command (MAC) 9th Weather Reconnaissance Wing by the end of 1963.
The 55th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron received these WC-135B Aircraft:
WC-135B 61-2665
WC-135B 61-2666
WC-135B 61-2667
WC-135B 61-2668
WC-135B 61-2669
The 56th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron received these WC-135B Aircraft:
WC-135B 61-2670
WC-135B 61-2671
WC-135B 61-2672
WC-135B 61-2673
WC-135B 61-2674
61-2671 crashed on the runway at Yokota AB in 1970 because the horizontal stabilizer trim motor allegedly ran away and jammed the elevator in the full up position. This trim screw condition contributed to the destruction of several other KC-135 aircraft over the years.
The 56th WRS maintenance crew replaced the elevator on the left side due to damage the week before the flight. The elevator control rods ran along up tight close to the fuselage. To hook them up properly, according to the Air Force Maintenance book, the AFM called for the removal of the huge tail cowling, which meant a bunch more down time. As a result, the flightline maintenance guys took a shortcut, left the tail cone in place, and put the control rod bolt in from the wrong side. They didn't get it correctly safety wired because it was squeezed up tight against a spar, and they thought it would be OK. It did work fine on preflight and power-on operational check before taxiing, but, as -671 took off down the runway, the pilots pulled back on the yoke, and even with their feet on the instrument panel pulling on the control columns together, they could not get the nose up or the nose-wheels off the centerline as they rolled down the runway at take-off power.
The aircraft commander used stabilizer trim at full nose-up setting to lift off the runway just barely missing the commuter train outside Fussa. The aircrew went out and dumped fuel over Tokyo Bay, came back, attempted to land, but they couldn't trim the nose without full elevator authority. The aircraft commander made several attempts or passes over the runway and finally had to come in hot at over 180 knots since the WC-135 was too heavy to glide in underpowered without uncontrollably stalling wingover.
After touching down on the last attempt, 61-2671 bounced three times. On the third runway contact, the front gear folded back into the forward fuel tank, and the aircraft skidded off the runway twisting the shit out of the fuselage. Everyone bailed out over the wing. According to Steve Wing who was on -669, I watched the whole thing go down. I was glad it wasn't my bird 669.
The Squadron and Wing Commander awarded the Aircraft Commander an Air Force Cross for bringing -671 in without destroying it. He managed to get it down to the Higashi-Fussa end of the runway, but he almost did not have the throttle power to get over the railroad tunnel off the end of the runway. In order to get over the tunnel, he built up enough airspeed at 110% power to lift the nose up and get it all over the tunnel, but he then had no way to bleed that airspeed off and set -671 down in the foam.
Apparently, the elevator control rod bolt came loose, backed-out, and jammed against a spar, which would not let the elevator go up or down. The fastener had to go inside from the fuselage pointing out. This was the only way it would fit properly, according to the maintenance manual. The maintenance guys reversed the bolt in-from-out to out-pushed-in so they wouldn't have to take the tail cone off to make room to install the bolt. They experimented with it up to some degree because Steve Wing had to gut -669 and fly to Boeing to pick up a RAM Team and then go back and pick up parts and tools to fix -671.
Rather than scrap the airframe there at Yokota AB, it cost about 2 million dollars to fix. For a maintenance screwup that caused the landing accident---not anything to do with the stabilizer trim screw that saved the aircrew and plane on takeoff---two million dollars from budgeted maintenance funds may have been a bargain for a WC-135B that otherwise would have crashed at the end of the runway into a passing train.
The Air Force released -671 from Air Weather Service in 1972, converted it to a C-135C executive transport aircraft, and it sat on the ramp at Hickam AFB with Detachment 1 of the 89th Military Airlift Wing. It carried the combined command staffs of the Pacific forces until 1990. The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center later converted 61-2671 to its present static display outside Tinker AFB, OK.
All the rest of the WC-135Bs went back to Boeing at Wichita for a wing re-skin overhaul and a 10,000 hour airframe lifecycle extension. These aircraft also had an over-cockpit, air-refueling receiver installed, and KY-28 secure voice communications and Mode IV IFF installed. For every aircraft that came back to McClellan AFB later in 1972, 1973, and 1974, the 55th WRS had to wring-out factory wiring problems on each and every modification because Wichita installed the wiring bundles without applying power to the finished modification.
The Air Force converted 61-2668 and 61-2669 to C-135Cs during the summer of 1972 and reassigned them to the 89th Military Airlift Wing at Andrews AFB outside Washington DC. -668 and -669 eventually transferred to Systems Command and then to the present-day Air Material Command as avionics test aircraft.
The Air Force converted a fourth WC-135B /61-2673/ to C-135C and sent -673 to Detachment 1 of the 89th Military Airlift Wing at Hickam AFB in 1974. 61-2673 remained at Hickam AFB until 1994 when it went to AMARC at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ because it was corroded beyond repair at Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center.
61-2674 was the lead WC-135B that had the majority of sampling missions over the Chernobyl reactor disaster in the Ukraine, Soviet Union, April 25-26, 1986.
The Chernobyl reactor accident was a grotesque disaster, and it bankrupted the Soviet Union not only financially but humanly, morally, philosophically, and scientifically. The Ukraine and the interior of Russia will be a financial, human, moral, philosophical, and scientific wasteland for hundreds if not thousands or tens of thousands of years. The final outcome will be vastly more catastrophic and costly than Hollywood could represent in one-hundred post-Apocalyptic science-fiction movies.
Because the Soviets misunderstood or tried to downplay the initial explosion and meltdown, the exact nature of the reactor accident could only be known by measuring it. That Soviet reactor debris emitted high-energy radioactivity characteristic of a critical or ongoing nuclear reaction. The reactor plume blew downwind into Scandinavia, and the initial readings must have been very frightening to the Norwegians and Swedish considering that the #1 Chernobyl reactors was still runaway and visibly on fire. So, the Swedish nuclear authority broadcast an all-points bulletin, and the United Nations probably invoked its highest authority and implored the United States of America to assess the Ukraine situation. Certainly 61-2674 deployed from 55th WRS with two alert crews and KC-135 tanker support. They never looked back. As each WC-135B crew accumulated a medically-indicated dose of ionizing radiation, a new crew came on board until they too were exposed. This is exactly what the WC-135B was built to do, and, fortunately, one excellent aircraft was on alert on April 25-26, 1986.
Our nuclear-bomb fallout was contaminated with alpha and beta decay products, which were nearly harmless to us at 56th WRS provided we took preventative measures for radiological contamination. On the other hand, the Chernobyl nuclear reaction released very few alpha and beta decay particles but released many fast neutrons and huge quantities of gamma wavelength radiation in the rising smoke plume. These two latter, high-energy particle-waves changed normal aluminum, copper, silicon glass, and steel into radioactive isotopes. The point is that WC-135B /61-2674/ is now tangibly made of radioactive isotopes, and that's how it got "hot." For the time being, the Air Force Air Combat Command stored 61-2674 at Davis-Monthan AFB in August 1997 as an OC-135B Open Skies Treaty reconnaissance aircraft until all the signatories to the Open Skies Treaty ratify the over flight reconnaissance provisions. Offutt AFB, NE has two remaining WC-135Bs modified to WC-135Ws by the addition of a UHF data link console assigned to the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron of the former 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing and a third EC-135C as a weather reconnaissance mission-ready training aircraft.
Here are the ten WC-135Bs and one EC-135C Training Aircraft*:
Air Combat Command Constant Source Air Weather Reconnaissance.
61-2665 WC-135W 55th Wing Offutt AFB, NE
Present disposition of 61-2665 is unclear and depends on congressional funding.
Air Combat Command "Constant Phoenix" Air Weather Reconnaissance.
61-2667 WC-135W 45th Reconnaissance Squadron 55th Wing Offutt AFB, NE
62-3582 EC-135C 45th Reconnaissance Squadron 55th Wing Offutt AFB, NE *
Air Material Command / Raytheon E-Systems Division; Majors Field, Greenville,TX.
61-2666 NC-135W Rivet Joint Test Aircraft Det. 2 Hdqtrs Air Material Command
Air Mobility Command / Hickam AFB, Hawaii.
61-2668 C-135C Detachment 1, 89th Military Airlift Wing
Air Material Command "Speckled Trout" Avionics Test Aircraft.
61-2669 NC-135C 412th Flight Test Squadron 412th Flight Test Wing Edwards AFB. This aircraft is alternately flown as executive transport for USAF Chief of Staff until March 2003 when it will be replaced with EC-135E 57-2589.
Final disposition of 61-2669 is unclear and depends on congressional funding.
Tinker AFB OC-ALC Heritage Airpark Static Display. 61-2671 C-135C Display aircraft as it appeared at Hickam AFB, HI 1974 to 1990.
Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC) / Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ.
61-2673 C-135C Formerly assigned to Det 1 89th MAW at Hickam AFB until it was removed from service in 1994 for irreparable corrosion.
Air Combat Command / Defense Threat Reduction Agency "Open Skies Treaty".
61-2670 OC-135B 45th Reconnaissance Squadron 55th Wing Offutt AFB, NE
61-2672 OC-135B 45th Reconnaissance Squadron 55th Wing Offutt AFB, NE
61-2674 OC-135B 55th Wing Stored/Davis-Monthan AFB.
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