New KC-135 static display at Altus AFB

[Larry Wielgosz]

Brad, thanks for the photos. It's great to see you kept your dad's material. Nice way to remember an important part of his life. Good to see you are interested in it also. Many family members aren't & sometimes it becomes too late. I bet it makes you even prouder of your dad. Good job.

Larry

[64zebra]

Brad, thanks for the photos. It's great to see you kept your dad's material. Nice way to remember an important part of his life. Good to see you are interested in it also. Many family members aren't & sometimes it becomes too late. I bet it makes you even prouder of your dad. Good job.

Larry

everyone is welcome, I'm glad to post the ones I have, as soon as I get the slides made into pics I'll get more posted
I was interested in aircraft/USAF since I was a little kid. My dad taught us a lot.
Its always been something I've been interested in and enjoyed.

[64zebra]

One short historical story on 58-0070.....my dad said when North Korea illegally seized the U.S.S. Pueblo in 1968, the entire wing of F-105s and KC-135s were scrambled from Carswell AFB. Each 135 ferried over a pair of 105s all the way to Vietnam. He said the 135s circled overhead while the 105s landed (I can't remember the base) and they began taking sporadic ground fire as they were landing. He said they could hear the 105 pilots coming on the radio getting hit with rifle fire as they were landing and someone commented on the radio those poor ********....24 hours ago they were sitting behind a desk looking over plans sipping tea.


another one.....my dad's plane was going over to Europe and stopped at Andrews AFB for some cargo and ended up picking up six U.S. Navy sailors. The sailors were being smart-mouthed with the crew, talking trash, etc. As my dad was gong back and forth on the plane during flight one of them said "I see you and your crew have parachutes but where are ours?". My dad told them with a straight face: "ehh, nobody ever gets out of things things alive anyway". They were quiet as a mouse until touching down at Mildenhall.

[APG85]

Looks good! That brings back so many memories. Like, rolling (and I mean roooolllling) down the runway during a heavy-weight, water injection takeoff reciting the prayer, "Please God, don't let us loose injection on one of the outboards!" Fortunately, I only had to do that a few times before we received the 'R' models at McConnell. Went from 12,000 lbs (13,500 with water inj.) of thrust per engine to 22,000 lbs. A world of difference.

I think they lost one at Kirtland eons ago when they lost injection. Bits of wreckage are still on the hill/mtn. overlooking the base...