This photo is of the Air Force One aircraft (minus the president) taxiing past a C-141 at McChord in the summer of 1971.
It had been up at Renton field (south of Seattle) for
modifications prior to
Nixon's trip to China. The aircraft commander called
down to McChord to request
that we send a refueling truck up there. All they
had at Renton was Jet-A; he
wanted JP-4.
As a naive lieutenant I advised him that I didn't
think my refuelers would
survive the 40 mile road trip up there without
breaking down. He told me to
call the 89th and if it was okay with them, he'd fly
down to McChord and gas
up. They said fine.
I was waiting out in front of Base Ops with my
camera when a Colonel came out
and wanted to know what all the hub-bub was about.
Being somewhat of a smart
ass, I told him Air Force One was inbound, just five
minutes out.
He turned and went back in the building swearing
"I'm the Operations Officer,
but nobody tells me anything!"
Don
C141HEAVEN Continuing Education
Program:
If you want to learn more than you ever knew about
aviation fuel Chevron has an
excellent review:
Click here for a 2 mb
PDF file..
The AF doesn't use JP-4 anymore...now it's all JP-8.
Read about why in either of the links just
referenced.
Instead of going home to the LA area for summer vacation following my junior year at the University of Washington during the summer of 1971 I stayed in Seattle to complete in the ROTC Flight Instruction Program. After living in Seattle for three years, I knew that if you want to learn to fly there you'd better do it in the summer.
I was down at Renton field one day preparing for a solo flight and after I had called ground control for taxi permission they told me not to even start my engine until they gave me the OK. A few seconds later, the Air Force One aircraft went zooming off the runway to the north towards Mercer Island. After reading Don's story it seems like a good bet that this was the same aircraft on the same day. I've no way to prove it, but the timing seems right. Here's a shot of the runway at Renton:
You can't see it in this photo, but Boeing has some
major plant facilities
just to the east out of the field of view of the
camera on this picture. They
did a lot of work on 727's and 737's and some
military work as well, which is
why Air Force One was there.
There is a seaplane ramp at the north end of this
runway where Wiley Post and
Will Rogers set off towards Alaska in a LOCKHEED
aircraft in August, 1935. They
had stopped at Renton to have it outfitted with
pontoons for the expected
puddle jumping they planned to be doing. A week
later the aircraft crashed in
Alaska and both men died.
I've made a PDF of the story, which you can
download from here.
Here's 99 Juliet, the plane in which I learned to
fly. It's parked on the
ramp at the north end of the Renton Airport.
