The Multinational NATO E-3 Sentry Force

In the 1970s the NATO military alliance directed studies that looked at ways to improve the air defenses of the member nations. With the Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft entering service with the USAF in 1977 with the 552d Airborne Early Warning and Control Wing at Tinker AFB, the E-3 and its capabilities became the default candidate to meet the air defense needs of NATO. The NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force (NAEW&CF) was created in January 1980 and granted full command status in October of that year by the alliance headquarters. The NATO E-3 force would be based at the former RAF airbase at Geilenkirchen just 50 miles from Cologne. The base had once been home to fighter squadrons assigned to RAF Germany from the end of the Second World War to 1968, at which time the base was handed back to the Germans to house a Pershing IRBM wing. With the arrival of the first NATO E-3 Sentry aircraft in 1982, flying operations started in earnest in February 1982 with then-West Germany handing over Geilenkirchen to NATO the following month. Full operational capability of the E-3 Component came in 1988.

The NATO E-3 Component of the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force (NAEW&CF) is the first postwar military unit manned by a multinational force from what started out as 11 nations. Today, 18 nations participate- Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States. Crews and personnel from the contributing nations not only fly and man the 18 E-3 Sentry aircraft based at Geilenkirchen, but also the support personnel of the base as well. The component commander is usually a brigadier general and the five wings of the force (Operations, Logistics, Base Support, Training, and Information Technology) are each led by a colonel from one of the contributing member nations. Only Luxembourg and the UK do not provide any personnel to the E-3 Component. Luxembourg's main contribution is the registration of the aircraft as belonging to Luxembourg and the UK has its own Sentry AWACS force based at RAF Waddington which operates under the command of the NAEW&CF.

In addition to the 18 Boeing E-3A Sentry AWACS aircraft, three ex-airline Boeing 707-320Cs were purchased as 707 Trainer Cargo Aircraft (TCA) in the late 1980s to support NAEW&CF operations. One E-3A was lost in a crash in 1996 at Aktion, Greece, due to a bird strike. There are dedicated forward operating bases (FOB) at Trapani, Italy, Aktion, Greece, and Konya, Turkey. In addition, there is a forward operating location (FOL) at Orland, Norway, and is designated differently as a formality as Norway does not allow foreign bases on its territory.

At first the E-3As were procured to fill radar gaps in the NATO alliance's radar coverage but have also served as an air battle management station (such as during the Balkan conflicts) and as a flying command post (such as in covering a major diplomatic event). The E-3 force regularly conducts counter-terrorism patrols in the Mediterranean and provides a complete maritime surveillance picture for the NATO command. During high visibility events such as summits or major sporting events like the World Cup, the E-3As act as an airborne adjunct to existing local radar networks. The powerful radar of the Sentry can detect low-flying aircraft and any unidentified aircraft not transmitting transponder squawk codes.

In the near future, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has requested the presence of the NATO E-3s there, but the diplomatic details of a basing location nearby are still being worked out.

Source: Combat Aircraft, August 2010, Vol 11, No 8. "NATO's Flying Saucers" by Frank Crebas, p56-61.

Project Stormfury 1962-1983

I had posted the other night about the first serious effort at weather modification, Project Cirrus. Despite the termination of Project Cirrus in 1952 due to a stalemate on the validity of the data between the project scientists and the US Weather Bureau, efforts at weather modification didn't quite end. The chief scientist of Project Cirrus, had many adherents in the aviation and meteorology disciplines willing to continue his work. During the mid-1950s, a series of destructive hurricanes hit the United States. During the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season, Hurricanes Carol and Edna both hit New England and Hurricane Hazel left a path of destruction from Haiti to as far north as Toronto, Canada. Several other storms followed in the few years following, but none were as destructive as the three storms of the 1954 season.

Irving Langmuir's work with Project Cirrus was resurrected in 1962 when leaders in Washington launched Project Stormfury with the cooperation of the US Navy and the US Department of Commerce (the cabinet department that the US Weather Bureau belonged to). This time, however, with memories fresh of the 1954 hurricane season, the mission would be to send aircraft deep into hurricanes to seed them with hopes of weakening their destructive forces. Project Stormfury missions were some of the most dangerous yet- aircraft like the hurricane hunting Douglas DC-6s of the US Weather Bureau and US Navy Lockheed WC-121 Warning Stars (later WP-3A Orions) were sent into the fiercest part of the hurricanes, the eyewall, in hopes that cloud seeding would weaken the hurricane. Various support aircraft flew on the periphery and even above the storms. Government scientists flew on the Stormfury missions as well to gather data on the internal dynamics of the hurricanes. At the peak of Project Stormfury in 1969, over $2 million was being spent a year on the missions, a hefty sum in those days for a project that still sat on dubious scientific ground.

Scientists had developed 130-pound bombs that contained silver iodide crystals to seed lower altitudes from safer altitudes higher up. Special silver iodide flares were developed that burned for over 30 seconds as they fell through the clouds. Many of Stormfury's scientists were convinced that concentrating the seeding on the eyewall would result in the energy being expended as rain. The tighter the eyewall, the stronger the winds. By flying around the eyewall at certain altitudes, the seeding methods would dissipate the eyewalls clouds as they released their moisture as rain. If they could "loosen" the eyewall as much as 10 miles outward, that corresponded with a significant decrease in the storm's destructive power.

Because of the size of hurricanes, the seeding missions often required approximately 10 aircraft flying laps around the eye within the turbulent eyewall. Radar was used not only to guide the aircraft day or night in the eyewall, but also to assist with coordination and station keeping as the seeding drops by all the aircraft had to be coordinated. It seemed the the seeding operations were working- the eyewalls of the storms "attacked" appeared to widen and the storms would drop in intensity. But keep in mind that these Stormfury flights were also gathering data on the internal dynamics of the hurricanes as well.

As the data was compiled, seeding came under closer scrutiny. Pilots before each mission were randomly given one of two envelopes- one that ordered them to seed the eyewall and one that had them fly the mission, but to not seed the storm. The blinded experiments set up by the US Weather Bureau showed that the Stormfury scientists weren't able to reliably determine if the storm had been seeded or not. In the early 1970s, the Atlantic hurricane season was unusually quiet and not enough storms developed within range of Florida for seeding experiments to be conducted. Once the hurricane seasons intensified again, political pressure prevented Stormfury missions from being flown again. Some of this was the post-Vietnam era environment of budget austerity; some of it was pressure from politicians from states like Florida that feared getting struck by a storm that had been modified and had inadvertantly gotten stronger. Stormfury's scientists then tried to get the missions flown in the Pacific, but the governments of China, Japan, and Australia were very explicit that they didn't want weather modification experiments in their part of the world.

The final nail in the coffin of Project Stormfury came in 1983 when several scientists, some of which were Stormfury participants, wrote a scientific analysis that showed that hurricane eyewalls cyclically weaken and intensify on their own, what we today call the "eyewall regeneration cycle" or ERC. In addition, their work also showed that the necessary ingredient for successful seeding, supercooled water, was several orders of magnitude less than what Project Stormfury's scientists had assumed. In their review of 21 years of seeding missions and the data collected, not a single storm had been conclusively disrupted and any decreases in strength were likely part of the observed eyewall regeneration cycle. That year, the Department of Commerce canceled Project Stormfury for good.

All wasn't lost, though. All those missions into hurricanes in the 21 years of Project Stormfury generated reams of data that gave meteorologists insights into the dynamics and mechanisms of hurricanes that improved weather forecasting. The data might otherwise not have been collected at the rate it was were it not for the intensity of the Stormfury missions that not only carried silver iodide, but also scientists and data-gathering equipment. Today, despite the fact that the US population on the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts has exploded exponentially, the risk of dying from a hurricane is less than 1% of what it was in 1900.

Source: Air & Space Smithsonian, July 2010, Vol. 25, No. 2. "Climate Control: Irving Langmuir tried to change the world one storm at a time" by Sam Kean, p55-57.

How American Airlines Saved the MD-80

When McDonnell Douglas launched the MD-80 the first aircraft were rolling of the Long Beach line in the midst of the financial turmoil in the airline industry right around the time of deregulation. This led to disappointing initial sales for the aircraft, with only 62 aircraft delivered in the first two years of production and none of them from one of the US majors. The board of directors then authorized the price of the aircraft to dropped to the breakeven point just to move planes and if that wasn't enough, there was quite a bit talk about closing the MD-80 production line. Airlines simply didn't have the capital to spend on new planes during the years following deregulation.

In 1984 Robert Crandall was the then-new head of American Airlines and found the airline saddled with increasing inefficient gas-guzzling 727-100s and 727-200s. At one point he even considered getting them re-engined to improve their fuel economy- but those plans were shelved when McDonnell Douglas came to him with a ground-breaking plan that would allow Crandall to replace the 727s while at the same time keep the MD-80 production line open. McDonnell Douglas salespeople pitched a 20% improvement in operating economics over the 727, but Crandall wanted more than just better economics.

McDonnell Douglas was desperate for a major order- by this point the industry was rife with rumors of the cancellation of the MD-80 program and with the rocky financial picture of the company at the time, those sort of rumors began a vicious cycle as major airlines began to shun the MD-80 series and give McDonnell Douglas salespeople the runaround in corporate headquarters worldwide.

McDonnell Douglas then did something that would change the way the industry purchased and operated aircraft- they offered American 20 MD-82s on a five-year lease with options for extension. With as little as 30 days notice, American could return the aircraft at a cost of less than $2 million per jet. In return, no money would be required up front. McDonnell Douglas hoped that American's operation of the MD-82s would lead to firm sales later on. With the lease payments arranged coming out to less than the interest on a new aircraft, American agreed to the lease terms which included a share of the profits for the manufacturer if the aircraft proved highly productive for American Airlines.

Under this arrangement, those first 20 MD-82s led to an American order worth $1.35 billion for an additional 60 MD-82s with options for another 100 MD-82s for a total potential sale of over $3 billion. Production rates in Long Beach were increased from an abysmal low of three jets per month. American's first MD-82s entered service in May 1983 and proved to be more efficient than advertised- 37% better than the 727s they were replacing. American would eventually become the world's largest MD-80 operator, with over 300 aircraft (prior to the TWA acquisition).

This ground-breaking agreement changed the way the industry re-equipped and allowed cash-poor carriers to to ditch their older gas-guzzling jets. TWA followed American with an initial 15 aircraft lease similar to what McDonnell Douglas had set up with American and by the mid-1980s, the MD-80 was on the order books for other airlines as well such as Alitalia and Finnair, ensuring the long-term future of the MD-80 series. Had American not come through with its orders, the MD-80 production line likely would have been shut down (possibly for good) at the end of 1982 with an order backlog of only 7 jets. There would eventually be 1,125 MD-80 series jetliners built, 710 of which are still flying today. From the MD-80 family came the MD-90 (117 built, 105 still flying) and the 717 (which was designated the MD-95 prior to the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger; 156 built, 144 still flying). Quite a turnaround for a program that was on the verge of shutdown had it not been for American Airlines!

Source: Douglas Twinjets: DC-9, MD-80, MD-90 and 717 (Crowood Aviation Series) by Thomas Beecher. Crowood Press, 2002.

Irving Langmuir and Project Cirrus

By the end of World War II, Irving Langmuir was already a well-known industrial chemist with impeccable credentials that went as far back as before the First World War when he worked with GE and Thomas Edison to improve the incandescent light bulb, the basis of which led to his 1932 Nobel Prize in chemistry, becoming the first industrial chemist to win the prestigious award. But he had other pursuits and mind, having become interested in weather phenomena before the start of the Second World War. Not only was Langmuir interested in the weather, he saw a chance to even control the weather. At the time, the idea of weather modification and control had been established in the realm of pseudoscience practiced by half-crazed individuals. But in Langmuir, suddenly the field of weather modification had the clout of a prominent scientist. He successfully persuaded his employer, General Electric, to team up with the US Army Signal Corps and the Office of Naval Research in 1946 to start Project Cirrus.

Lanmuir teamed up with a GE machinist, Vincent Shaefer and a chemist, Bernard Vonnegut (author Kurt Vonnegut's older brother) to start some basic work in a research lab to determine the best way to cause precipitation to fall out of a cloud. Dry ice was found at first to be useful, but work also proceeded on silver iodide that was created by Vonnegut. In November 1946 the first aerial cloud seeding in history took place under Langmuir's direction near GE's headquarters in Schenectady, New York. Using a rented Fairchild 24 converted for crop dusting, a four mile long altostratus cloud at 4,000 feet was seeded with dry ice pellets fed into a funnel by Vincent Shaefer in the back of the aircraft. Within minutes, snow fell but evaporated at 2,000 feet. Undeterred, Langmuir tried a more ambitious experiment the following month using a bigger load of dry ice the following month. No precipitation resulted, but the following day upstate New York and Vermont were hit with the biggest snowstorm of the winter season that shut down business and caused accidents throughout the area. Though no connection could be made, many residents of upstate New York blamed Langmuir's experiments.

The US Weather Bureau (predecessor of the National Weather Service and part of the Department of Commerce) and its scientists, though, weren't convinced as no causal relationship could be drawn between that December seeding and the snowstorm the following day. Despite this, GE lawyers got spooked by the potential liability and insisted that Langmuir get the full cooperation of the US military as it was better shielded from the sorts of lawsuits GE feared. Military cooperation benefited Project Cirrus as more powerful aircraft with better load carrying capacities were no available. Boeing B-17s were first used which could seed as much as 80 pounds of dry ice pellets on each pass through target clouds. In October 1947 a USAF B-17 took off from MacDill AFB in Tampa to seed a weak hurricane that was stalled out off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. Langmuir felt that seeding the rain bands of the storm with silver iodide would weaken it further. For whatever reason, the hurricane inexplicably strengthened, speed up, and struck Savannah, Georgia, causing several deaths and $34 million in damage. Once again, Project Cirrus was blamed for the strengthening of the storm even though the scientists of the US Weather Bureau insisted otherwise.

GE's legal department got spooked again and Project Cirrus was moved to New Mexico to try and create rain in the arid climate. For two years Langmuir's team seeded clouds with silver iodide crystals. Langmuir boldly announced to the press after two years that "only a few cents' worth of silver iodide could initiate dozens of rainstorms." He even appeared on the cover of Time magazine as a "rainmaker" and he quit his position at GE to speak throughout the country on the potential of rainmaking. Soon private pilots throughout the US started up "rainmaking" operations and cloud seeding took place over a six-state area, spurring Congressional hearings as local tourist attractions accused the seeding activities of affecting their businesses.

Even worse, the US Weather Bureau's scientists were busy debunking Langmuir's work. The New Mexico storms were usually the result of warm fronts that pumped Gulf moisture into the area. Study of hurricane records showed that the Savannah hurricane followed the same track as a storm in 1906, calling into question what if any effect had been caused by the seeding of that storm. Project Cirrus ended in a stalemate with the US Weather Bureau and in 1952 GE was more than happy to pull the plug on the project. Langmuir died in 1957 of a heart attack, but the work in the United States on weather modification hardly died with the death of its greatest champion.

Stay tuned for Part Two of this story!

Source: Air & Space Smithsonian, July 2010, Vol. 25, No. 2. "Climate Control: Irving Langmuir tried to change the world one storm at a time" by Sam Kean, p52-55.

The Shuttle Training Aircraft

Because of the unique and challenging flying qualities of the Space Shuttle Orbiter when it returns to Earth as a very heavy glider, NASA has had four Gulfstream II jets that have been modified to train Shuttle commanders and pilots in the complex task of bringing the Orbiter to a smooth landing after reentry. To accomplish this unique task, the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) has a number of modifications that set it apart from a standard GII business jet. The most important of these modifications is of course, internal, with the Advanced Digital Avionics System (ADAS) that replaces some of the seats (leaving nine seats) on the right side of the forward cabin. The ADAS takes in variables such as the weight of the Orbiter on return to Earth, runway and direction/elevation of the field in question and then moves the flight control surfaces and throttles of the STA to simulate how the Orbiter would respond to control inputs from its pilots.

The trainee pilot sits in the left side of the STA cockpit which has all the necessary instrumentation and heads-up display (HUD) as used on the Shuttle as well as the Orbiter's left hand stick controller. The front and side cockpit windows on the left side of the STA cockpit are also partially masked to give the pilot flying the simulation the same angular field of view as if he or she were on the Orbiter's flight deck.

The right side of the cockpit is occupied by the instructor who also has a HUD but is otherwise has stock GII instrumentation. The nosewheel steering has been relocated from the left side to the right, and there is a button that the instructor can press to exit the simulation and return the STA to the standard flight characteristics of the Gulfstream jet.

Externally, to make the Gulfstream fly like the Orbiter, the wings have been modified with three flying surfaces instead of the just two (flaps and aileron) used on the standard GII. The third surface is inboard section of the flaps and is a direct lift flap that can deflect up 30 degrees (this kills some of the wing lift and better simulates the aerodynamics of the Orbiter) and down 20 degrees as a standard flap. The ADAS also moves the flaperon (what was once the flap) and the aileron to faithfully replicate the flight characteristics of the Orbiter. The direct lift flaps are fast acting and also work in concert with the engines. Unlike a standard GII which has clamshell bucket reversers on the engines, the STA has cascade reversers installed that can be used in flight and if they fail, they automatically stow. The wings have also been structurally strengthened and the vortex generators just behind the leading edge are nearly full span to help the airflow stay attached to the wings during the extreme maneuvering performed by the STA. On the stock GII, the vortex generators are only outboard of the wing fence.

Each STA sortie consists of 10 simulated Orbiter approaches, starting from 35,000 feet. The speed is then set at 250 kts (the speed limit of the main landing gear extension) and the main landing gear is extended to create more drag for the steep approach of approximately 20-30 degrees. The ADAS also activates the thrust reversers as needed to maintain the fidelity of the simulation. The descent is flown at 300 kts at 20 degrees which translates to approximately 12,000 feet per minute descent rate. At this point, the pilots are literally hanging forward in their harnesses and only the ground fills the cockpit view. At final approach, the STA is at 250 kts and the instructor lowers the nose gear just in case the trainee pilot inadvertantly lands the STA. In the Orbiter, the point of touchdown corresponds with the STA still about 20 feet off the ground. At that point touchdown is considered to have been made the instructor exits the simulation, takes control and takes the STA back up to altitude for another simulation run.

Most STA flights take place at White Sands, New Mexico, with the aircraft based at El Paso International Airport. Three runways are marked out in the dry lakebed to simulate the runways at Edwards AFB, Kennedy Space Center, and the trans-oceanic abort landing sites at Istres AB, France, Zaragoza AB and Moron AB, both in Spain. Trainee pilots start off with a foundation of 20 STA flights and at this point become competent enough to assigned to an Orbiter crew. Once assigned to a crew, both the pilot and mission commander will fly the STA once a month. Nine months out from launch the STA flights are made every other week and then three months out the STA flights are made weekly. Previous pilots and mission commanders who have already flown to space start their every other week ramp up in the STA at six months out from launch. At three months from launch, the some of the weekly STA flights are made at Edwards AFB and at the Kennedy Space Center as well. Extra flights can also be requested by the trainee pilots.

Two weeks before launch two STAs are flown to the Kennedy Space Center and daily STA training flights are made, one of which is done in the full spacesuit for added realism. By the time a first time Shuttle mission commander blasts off, they will have made approximately 1,000 practice approaches in the STA. First time Shuttle pilots will have made a minimum of 500 STA approaches. With the Shuttle program winding down, no decisions have yet been made on the future of the STA aircraft.

Source: Air International, July 2010, Vol. 79, No.1. "NASA's Unique Approach- Space Shuttle Landing" by Dino Carrara, p82-91.

The Spiroid Winglet

In the late 1990s Aviation Partners Inc. (API), the developer of the blended winglet, began to flight test on a Gulfstream II a completely different winglet shape than anything that had flown before, the spiroid winglet. The original patent of the closed-loop shape winglet was originally filed in 1992 by one of API's founders. The basic idea of the spiroid winglet is to take the benefits of the blended winglet to their fullest by essentially bringing the blended winglet to loop back onto the wing. The vortices that stream off the wingtips of aircraft are a major source of drag and in the blended winglet, they have resulted in 5-7% increase in fuel efficiency by attenuating those vortices.

The first version of the spiroid winglets flown in the 1990s on the Gulfstream II were more circular in shape than the current incarnation. Flight testing of the first version resulted in refinements to the design that leads to more of an arch design with the inboard section of the spiroid moved farther aft and outboard to bring it closer to the wingtip vortex. The resultant design is now in flight testing on a Dassault Falcon 50 and the winglets and structural strengthening needed add 500 pounds to the empty weight of the jet. It was this Falcon 50 that made its first public appearance at the recent Oshkosh air show. Constructed of polished aluminum and approximately six feet in height, the new spiroids are not just intended to attenuate the wingtip vortex but to attempt to eliminate them altogether. Should this be the case, the leap in fuel savings and efficiency would be tremendous- on the order of 30% over the existing blended winglet design.

One of the side benefits of the spiroid winglet's possible ability to nearly eliminate the wingtip vortex would be in air traffic flow management at major airports. As it is right now, aircraft spacing is necessary to allow for wake vortex dissipation for the following aircraft. Aircraft with spiroid winglets would allow following aircraft to be spaced closer, in effect easing some of the congestion at major airports and improving flow efficiency.

The Dassault Falcon 50 testbed is to begin its formal flight test program this month to explore flutter, stability, and allow precise measurements of the degree of drag reduction. The aircraft will be initially limited to 250 KIAS and 0.70 Mach but as the tests progress, the flight envelope is anticipated to be expanded and may include icing tests.

Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology, August 2, 2010. "Head Turning Tip" by William Garvey, "Inside Business Aviation" column, p60.

The History of the TWA Moonliner

In the fall of 1955 a new Disneyland attraction opened to great fanfare as the centerpiece of Tomorrowland. Designed by Disney imagineer John Hench, the TWA Moonliner stood 76 feet tall as a 1/3 scale replica of what a 1986-era Moonliner was conceptualized to look like. Hench worked with the NASA rocket scientists Werner von Braun and Willy Ley in creating the Moonliner. Early in the design process, Ralph Damon, the president of TWA, was brought in as part of a classic marketing coup by Disney to sponsor the Moonliner attraction. At the time, TWA was the official airline of Disneyland, and TWA's classic red stripes on white would adorn the new Moonliner. The Moonliner stood eight feet taller than Sleeping Beauty's castle that formed the centerpiece of the Disneyland park.

Inside the main attraction housed next to the Moonliner, Disney visitors entered a futuristic ticketing and boarding area complete with flight attendants and gate agents in futuristic TWA uniforms. TWA signage adorned the simulated terminal area and large viewscreens and animated models demonstrated to waiting visitors the workings of the atomic-powered Moonliner and the planned routing to visit the Moon after liftoff. The passenger compartment of the attraction featured one of the first uses of air jackhammers and hydraulics to heighten the sensation and simulation of a rocket launch and spaceflight while two large screens displayed the progress of the flight. The PA system featured a baritone voice announcing himself as "Captain Collins, welcome aboard the TWA Moonliner 'Star of Polaris' for our flight to the Moon."

Once visitors exited the ride, they were ushered through what Disney called "Hobbyland" where they could buy toys and models of the TWA Moonliner and other space-themed attractions at Tomorrowland. Disney inked an exclusive deal with Strombecker Models to create the models and toys to be sold next to the attaction in the first widespread instance of what we now call cross-marketing that features so prominently with today's movies and television shows. At the same time Disney opened the TWA Moonliner, their Sunday evening television program featured a three part series titled "Man in Space" in which one part of the feature used scenes shot at the TWA Moonliner.

One year after the opening of the TWA Moonliner attraction, Howard Hughes had a 22-foot replica of the Moonliner added to the roof of the TWA headquarters building in Kansas City, Missouri at 18th Street and Baltimore. When Howard Hughes sold his stake in TWA in 1962, not only was this replica Moonliner removed and sold to a local company, but TWA also ended its sponsorship of the Moonliner attraction and Disneyland. It became the Douglas Moonliner when Douglas Aircraft Company became the attraction's sponsor and the Moonliner itself was repainted in Douglas' blue and red colors with the company name running down the side. With the merger of St. Louis-based McDonnell Aircraft Company and Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967, sponsorship ended and the Moonliner was taken down. In 1975 the Flight to the Moon attraction itself became the Mission to Mars attraction.

In 1997, a Missouri-based collector of Disney memorabilia purchased the deteriorating Moonliner replica that sat atop the TWA headquarters building. After a long restoration process, it now sits as part of the Airline History Museum's display at Kansas City's Wheeler/Downtown Airport. In 2006, a real estate development group bought the old TWA headquarters building and remodeled it as part of a new arts district. As a tribute to the building's past history as TWA's Kansas City headquarters, a slightly smaller but fully lit TWA Moonliner replica was built atop the building.

Source: From Props to Jets: Commercial Aviation's Transition to the Jet Age 1952-1962 by Craig Kodera, Mike Machat, and Jon Proctor. Specialty Press, 2010, p70-71.

Twilight of the Mighty Hunter

I had posted back in December about one of the obscure roles performed by the BAe Nimrod during the 1982 Falklands War. More often with ongoing commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, maritime patrol aircraft like the Nimrod and the Lockheed P-3 Orion are finding themselves performing missions they were not initially designed to perform. During Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the onboard high fidelity EO systems of the Orion proved valuable to US Special Forces teams fighting the Taliban. With long endurance, extensive sensor and communication suites and larger crews able to handle multiple tasks, maritime patrol aircraft became ideal in the role of overland ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance).

In 2003 the RAF issued an Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) to equip several Nimrods with a late-generation EO sensor system, the Wescam MX-15. Four aircraft had the sensor turret mounted in a fairing installed under the starboard wing just inboard of the pinion tank and deployed to Saudi Arabia to assist joint UK-US-Australian special forces teams in scouring the western deserts of Iraq for Scud missile launchers. After the fall of the Iraqi regime, the Nimrods returned to their home base of RAF Kinloss, but were soon recalled to Iraq in the summer of that year to assist in the fight against the insurgency under Operation Paradoxical. Since the RAF didn't yet have any UAVs in the same class as the MQ-1 Predator, the Nimrods with the MX-15 EO system provided high-fidelity overhead real-time ISR for the coalition forces involved. At the time, an early version of the ROVER (Remote Optical Video Enhanced Receiver) called Longhorn was in use that allowed, with much effort and technical issues, troops on the ground to see what the Nimrod overhead was seeing. The current ROVER system is much more user friendly.

In the spring of 2004 British forces in Basra found themselves battling the militia fighters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and once again the MX-15 equipped Nimrods provided overhead ISR for the troops on the ground. At the culmination of the effort against the Sadr Militia, an overhead Nimrod provided targeting information to an orbiting AC-130 Spectre gunship. As Sadr Militia units dispersed throughout the back streets of the city of Al Amarah, the Nimrod crew used the MX-15 system to identify the militia and then hand off the coordinates to the Spectre for destruction.

In the latter half of that year following the stabilization of the Shiite south, the Nimrods shifted their attention to Baghdad in an effort to combat the increase in Sunni insurgent bombings there. A Nimrod would forward deploy from Oman to Basra International Airport with a British army liason officer aboard. Flying almost nightly from Basra, the small Nimrod force was flying over 200 hours a month.

In the overland mission, the Nimrod's three acoustic sensor operators rotated shifts operating the MX-15 turret. The ESM and Searchwater radar operators were in charge of deconfliction over the crowded airspace over Baghdad. Army liason officers worked with the mission commander at the master display to coordinate and disseminate the information from the EO operators on the nine-hour missions. The MX-15 had three cameras- one narrow band, one wide band and one in infrared that were selectable by the operators. The best image is then displayed on a larger monitor over a moving map display that allowed ground units to easily relay to the operators where to look.

In July 2006 the MX-15-equipped Nimrod force switched its attention to Afghanistan in the intensifying effort against the Taliban. With a grueling schedule divided between Iraq and Afghanistan, the Nimrod force finally gave way with the loss of XV230 in September in 2006 with all of its 15 crew being lost. The cause was traced to persistent problems with the Nimrod's air-refueling plumbing system adjacent to hot air ducting. With 11 aircraft remaining in the overall fleet, the UK Ministry of Defense put those aircraft through a modification project that was completed in 2009, but the Nimrods never returned to Afghanistan, their role being taken up by a trio of new RAF aircraft, the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, Beechcraft Shadow R.1 ISR (based on the Beech King Air) and the new Bombardier Sentinel R.1 SAR surveillance aircraft (based on the Global Express business jet). In March 2010 the Nimrod MR.2 aircraft were official retired, ending some 30 years' service which began in the icy waters of the North Atlantic hunting Soviet subs and ended over the harsh terrain of Afghanistan hunting insurgents. It's replacement, the Nimrod MRA.4, won't be due to enter service until 2012 at the earliest.

Source: Air Forces Monthly, July 2010. "Secrets of the Nimrod at War", by Tim Ripley, p38-42.

Francis Gary Powers: After the Return

On May 1, 1960 a lone CIA U-2 spyplane took off from a forward operating base in Peshawar, Pakistan for what would be one of the most fateful flights of the Cold War era. After over 5 years of uneventful US overflights of the Soviet Union, this mission, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, would change the strategic balance of the Cold War. Powers' mission was to take him on a marathon mission over several reconnaissance targets of interest, from the Baikonur missile test facility, the Sverdlosk industrial center, the ICBM bases at Plesetsk, the submarine construction yards at Severodvinsk, and the Soviet Northern Fleet base at Murmansk before recovering at the NATO base at Bodo, Norway. Halfway through his flight before reaching Sverdlosk at an altitude of 70,500 feet, an SA-2 surface-to-air missile exploded aft of his aircraft, sending it spiraling downward. Powers survived and was promptly apprehended by Soviet authorities and in one of the dramatic moments of the Cold War, was tried in the Hall of Columns at the Kremlin in a highly-publicized proceeding that began on August 17, 1960. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage.

For the next 18 months Powers was in prison, the US government negotiated for his release and settled upon a trade for convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. Interestingly, the idea for the trade originated with Powers' father, Oliver. In November 1961 acting Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Charles Cabell notified Secretary of State Dean Rusk of the CIA's support of a trade. On February 1962 following President Kennedy's final approval, at a bridge in Berlin that connected East and West sides of the city, Francis Gary Powers was traded for the spy Rudolf Abel. Powers was immediately flown back to the United States for a comprehensive debriefing, convening what the agency called a "damage assessment team" to determine what damage Powers' shootdown and subsequent interrogation/imprisonment had done to US airborne intelligence efforts. Considering that Powers was extensively involved with the U-2 program from its beginnings, it was assumed that he had revealed everything to the Soviets- instructions to U-2 pilots of what to do in case of capture was scant at best. They were advised to "tell everything since they're going to get it out of you anyway". Some pilots flew on Soviet overflights with cyanide capsules and Powers was given a poison-tipped needle to inject himself with in the event of capture, but it was seized from him when he was apprehended after bailing out. At any rate, after a two week debrief, the damage assessment team concluded that the damage was minimal and were very satisfied with Powers' efforts to reveal as little classified information on the U-2 program as possible.

This wasn't sufficient for the newly-appointed DCI, John A. McCone (the previous appointed DCI was Allen Dulles who resigned in November 1961 in the wake of the shootdown and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion) demanded a further examination of Powers' actions while in Soviet custody despite a letter of support from the previous DCI, Allen Dulles. A new board of inquiry headed by federal judge Barrett Prettyman was convened to investigate the matter further. Testimony from the agency experts who debriefed him was taken, a thorough examination of Powers' background from his doctors to his fellow pilots and commanders from his former Air Force units was performed as well as a voluntary polygraph examination of Powers himself. Soviet photographs taken of the U-2 wreckage were reviewed by Lockheed Skunk Works engineer Kelly Johnson (who designed the U-2) and he found them consistent with Powers' story. DCI McCone was unconvinced and ordered the Air Force to have its own panel of experts review the evidence. The US Air Force echoed the Prettyman Board's findings as well with DCI McCone having only a possible procedural error by Powers in maintaining his course/altitude as the only bit of information contrary to Powers' testimony.

DCI McCone ordered the Prettyman Board reconvened to re-examine the evidence but their second report remained essentially unchanged from their original findings. In March 1962 Powers himself testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee who commended his actions and conduct during the mission and his subsequent capture. Despite all this, any findings that exonerated Powers weren't released to the public and the sensationalized press of the day resulted in a very negative portrayal of Francis Gary Powers. With no public statements from government officials commending Powers for his efforts to withhold classified information from the Soviets during his 18 month internment, in the public eye his motives and loyalties were questioned. His 1962 divorce from his wife further stained his reputation in the press. Powers was snubbed by President Kennedy who had already warmly received other pilots who had been shot down and captured by the Soviets and in 1963 DCI McCone awarded the CIA Intelligence Star to all the Soviet overflight U-2 pilots except Powers (It wasn't until 1965 that Powers got the Intelligence Star from McCone's successor).

CIA U-2 pilots were all drawn from USAF units with the agreement that they would temporarily be on leave from the Air Force for their tour of duty with the CIA, after which they could return to the USAF unit and active duty. Though there was significant initial opposition to his reinstatement with the Air Force, it was approved pending the conclusion of all the investigative proceedings. In the interim time, Kelly Johnson hired him as a U-2 test pilot at Lockheed in support of upgrades and developments being worked on for future U-2 versions. In late 1963 he was offered a chance to return to the Air Force, but Powers elected to remain at Lockheed working for Kelly Johnson. In 1969, with the end of U-2 production work, Kelly Johnson reluctantly had to furlough Powers as Lockheed was unable to place Powers in any other programs. Kelly Johnson would write in his test logs "I must let Gary Powers go. I have protected him for about seven years..."

Powers subsequently found work flying for a Los Angeles radio station as a traffic reporter and subsequently went to work for KNBC as a helicopter pilot. On August 1, 1977, Powers and his cameraman, George Spears were flying back to the KNBC heliport in Burbank in a Bell Jet Ranger 206 after covering a brush fire in Santa Barbara, when for reasons unknown, the helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed near the Sepulveda Dam in the San Fernando Valley community of Encino. Powers and Spears were killed instantly. Powers was laid to rest with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. On May 1, 2000, on the 40th Anniversary of his shootdown, USAF and CIA officials posthumously awarded Francis Gary Powers the Prisoner-of-War Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the National Defense Service Medal. The ceremony with Powers' family took place at Beale AFB, home of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing which today still operates the U-2. At the conclusion of the ceremony, a lone U-2 made a low-level flyby.

Powers' shootdown in 1960 marked the first time a surface-to-air missile successfully brought down a hostile aircraft and his overflight would be last US overflight of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union would go on to develop one the most comprehensive air-defense systems in the world and that would dictate US strategic planning well into the 1990s with a shift towards low-level penetration bombers, stealth, and most importantly, the technological shift to relying on satellites to provided imagery of Soviet installations and activities.

Source: Spyplane: The U-2 History by Norman Palomar. Zenith Press, 2001.

The Short but Colorful Life of Western Pacific Airlines

Western Pacific Airlines was founded at under-utilized Colorado Springs Municipal Airport by a team led by one of the founders of America West Airlines, Ed Beauvais. His airline background stretched back all the way to Bonanza Airlines before its merger into Air West and ultimately led to him serving as head of America West until 1992. Western Pacific commenced operations out of Colorado Springs in April 1995 using eight 737-300s with flights to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Oklahoma City. With the new trouble-ridden Denver International Airport 40 miles from the Denver city center to the northeast, residents living in the southern areas of the Denver metropolitan area quickly found the short one hour drive to Colorado Springs to catch a WestPac flight more convenient.

While Western Pacific did have a simple red/blue billboard livery, it was their "LogoJet" program that made the airline well-known amongst travellers and enthusiasts. For the first time, the entire exterior of an airliner was put up for rent as a flying billboard. The first customer to sign up for what WestPac called the "AirLogo Program" was the five-star Colorado Springs hotel, the Broadmoor, which was incidentally owned by one of the major investors in WestPac. But the most famous and most-photographed of the LogoJets was the Simpsons Jet. In May 1995 FOX Television needed an advertising coup for that month's Nielsen ratings sweeps for their long-running animated sitcom, The Simpsons. After a meeting with WestPac's marketing staff, FOX paid the airline $1 million to wear a scheme designed by FOX's ad department to bring attention to the TV show during the sweeps week and beyond.

As more 737-300s became available, more destinations were added to the WestPac network and the LogoJets made up a significant portion of the fleet, with customers ranging from the City of Colorado Springs and insurance companies to ski resorts and casinos. At its peak, WestPac was operating 18 737-300s out of Colorado Springs. The dramatic jump in passenger numbers brought increased attention to Colorado Springs which in 1994 had just completed a modern terminal facility to replace the dated and inadequate terminal building on the west side of the field near the FBO hangars. In no time the established majors were attracted back to the airport, much in the same way that Southwest brought traffic from other airlines back to Houston Hobby and how both Southwest and Midway revitalized Chicago Midway Airport.

The honeymoon ended after 18 months and at the end of 1996 investors who were impatient for profits ousted the management team including Ed Beauvais and a new team led by Robert Peiser moved in to reorganize the airline. The management shakeup revealed WestPac's financial health was worse than most in the industry realized. While Beauvais remained on the board of directors of WestPac, Peiser took the airline in a different direction in an effort to attract the business (thus higher revenue) passenger rather than the flocks of leisure travellers who were driving south from Denver to fly to vacation destinations in the WestPac network. One of his first moves was to scrap the LogoJet program and secondly, he moved WestPac to Denver International in an effort to attract more passengers. Some would later say that Peiser already had bankruptcy reorganization in mind and moved the airline to Denver to secure more attractive post-bankruptcy financing. After an abortive codeshare and proposed merger with Frontier Airlines, WestPac ceased operations and was eventually liquidated in February 1998.

WestPac's failure, wasn't just due to the move to Denver. The majors at Denver noticed WestPac's growing operation at Colorado Springs and lowered their fares. This, in combination with service improvements at Denver International, slowly eroded WestPac's advantages at Colorado Springs and made a move to Denver almost a necessity. Also, the Valujet crash in 1996 adversely affected customer perceptions of low-fare airlines. In the eight months preceding the shutdown, airline management made frantic moves to shift the airline from its original low-fare focus to business travel which would only deepen the debts- moving the hub to Denver, unveiling a new corporate logo and livery, converting to SABRE for reservations, and dropping several leisure markets. The merger of Frontier figured heavily in the survival plans for the airline, but wisely so as the more financially healthy airline, Frontier not only called off the merger, but also the codeshare as well. Western Pacific's demise couldn't have been prevented by staying at Colorado Springs as many former employees and city residents still believe- it was a simple case of declining yields in the face of stiff competition from the majors at Denver. And that would have been the case whether or not the airline was still at Colorado Springs or at it's final resting place at DEN.

In the end though, it's going to be the LogoJet program that will be Western Pacific's legacy to the airline industry as airlines all over the world have picked up on the idea (such as Ireland's Ryanair, for example). And of all the LogoJets, be they Western Pacific's or anyone elses to this day, the Simpsons Jet will always be the most famous.

Source: Boeing 737 (Crowood Aviation Series) by Malcom L. Hill. Crowood Press Ltd, 2002.