Crew members from Offutt Air Drive Base’s fifty fifth Wing in Nebraska feasted their eyes final week on one thing they hardly get to see: a brand new aircraft.
Nicely, type of new.
The WC-135R “nuke-sniffer” jet that landed July 11 on the Lincoln Airport — the fifty fifth’s momentary working base whereas Offutt’s runway is changed — was truly in-built 1964.
RELATED
However the former aerial New Hampshire Air Nationwide Guard refueling tanker has been refitted with new tools able to detecting atmospheric radiation, and up to date with trendy “glass cockpit” controls. And it has the identical newer, quieter turbofan engines as the remainder of Offutt’s RC-135 reconnaissance fleet.
“We now have a jet right here that the Air Drive hasn’t seen earlier than,” Lt. Col. Chris Crouch, commander of the Offutt-based forty fifth Reconnaissance Squadron, stated in a press launch from the fifty fifth Wing. “We could have much more vary to get to op areas that we had been by no means capable of attain earlier than.”
It’s the first of three refurbished Nationwide Guard KC-135s slated for supply to the fifty fifth Wing throughout the subsequent yr. All will fly the Fixed Phoenix mission, accumulating and analyzing air samples in help of the Restricted Nuclear Check Ban Treaty of 1963.
The mission dates to the Chilly Battle period. Its significance has grown as tensions with Russia rise and North Korea ramps up its missile-testing program with a collection of launches this yr.
“The world wants this functionality to sense nuclear assessments,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a former fifty fifth Wing commander, instructed The World-Herald in 2021.
RELATED
:quality(70)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/OWK2BLEVMZDADAG6SB3SJND36U.JPG)
Throughout the conversion, the lengthy refueling booms are faraway from the tankers and the planes’ avionics and flight techniques are upgraded to match the fifty fifth Wing’s different plane.
Additionally they are outfitted with small sensing pods on both sides of the fuselage, over the wing. Filters contained in the pods seize tiny particles from a nuclear blast, giving analysts essential details about the composition of the bomb or radiation supply.
The work is being completed in Greenville, Texas, by the 645th Aeronautical Programs Group, lengthy recognized by its nickname, “Massive Safari.”
The three new planes are changing two decrepit WC-135s which have undergone few upgrades since Boeing constructed them in 1961 and 1962 and lately had been infamous “hangar queens.”
RELATED
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/mco/5XBMMELO5JB7JMEMR36ONY27XM.jpg)
One of many planes, a WC-135C with the tail quantity 62-3582, was retired in November 2020 throughout a tongue-in-cheek retirement ceremony earlier than it was flown to a desert scrapyard in Arizona. Crew members described infuriating breakdowns and harrowing flights aboard an plane that the forty fifth Reconnaissance Squadron’s chaplain nicknamed “Lucifer’s Chariot.”
The second, a WC-135W with the tail quantity 61-2667, will proceed flying for just a few extra months. Nevertheless it has one of many worst upkeep information within the Air Drive.
In fiscal yr 2021, the aircraft had a “mission-capable” fee of 48%, in response to Air Drive knowledge printed by the Air Drive Instances, that means it was able to finishing up scheduled missions lower than half the time. And it had a “break” fee of 47%, that means it returned from virtually half of its missions needing vital repairs. Early final yr, it was sidelined in Australia for almost two months due to hydraulic issues.
On the urging of Bacon and Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer, Congress authorized $218 million in 2019 and 2020 to refurbish the three planes for the Fixed Phoenix mission. The choice additionally adopted a World-Herald investigative collection, known as “In-Flight Emergency,” in 2018 that spotlighted upkeep issues with the fifty fifth Wing’s fleet of C-135 variant jets.
“Earlier than we needed to have a particular cadre of very skilled aircrew who had been capable of fly with these outdated, small motors and take care of among the points that they had,” Crouch stated within the fifty fifth Wing launch. “Now we’ve got a pleasant, up to date, dependable jet that we are able to have any pilot, co-pilot and navigator fly on.”
RELATED
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/mco/ZOML453QORGNDP2DY6R5XC4EYE.jpg)
The supply of recent planes, and even refurbished ones, is a uncommon occasion for the fifty fifth Wing. The final refurbished planes arrived within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, stated Robert Hopkins III, a former RC-135 pilot who’s now a Dallas-based historian of Air Drive reconnaissance.
The final new planes had been the RC-135 variants delivered in 1967 for a number of missions, together with Rivet Joint and Cobra Ball. Lots of these are nonetheless flying.
“This can be a monumental second for us,” stated Col. Kristen Thompson, the fifty fifth Wing’s commander, within the press launch. She known as the supply of the WC-135s “a recreation changer.”
The subsequent WC-135R is scheduled to reach within the winter, in response to the press launch, and the third jet is anticipated in summer time 2023.
