Because of the KC-135Q Stratotanker crews, an SR-71 Blackbird never ran out of gas
The contribution of KC-135Q tanker crews to the SR-71 Blackbird program cannot be overstated, as the mission’s success depended heavily on their support. In Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions (Revised Edition), Paul F. Crickmore explains that Strategic Air Command (SAC) soon realized the tanker fleet assigned to SR-71 operations had to grow beyond the initial 21 Q-model aircraft. As a result, in 1967, a decision was taken to convert 35 more aircraft. These included 20 KC-135As from the 70th AREFS, 43rd BW, based at Little Rock AFB, Arkansas, and 15 from the 306th AREFS, 306th BW, at McCoy AFB, Florida.
However, as a cost-saving measure, these aircraft were not fitted with the complete avionics package carried by the KC-135Qs based at Beale, and they became informally known as ‘partial Qs’. Unlike the Beale-based aircraft, these additional KC-135s did not have the AN/ARN-90 TACAN or LORAN A system, the latter of which was later removed from the Beale fleet as well. Instead, the partial Qs used an AN/ARC-50, referred to as ‘Comm 3’, to provide the air-to-air distance information needed for tanker-receiver rendezvous.
Any account of the SR-71 would be incomplete without recognizing the crucial contribution of the KC-135Q tankers and their crews to the safe and successful execution of every mission. It is enough to note that an SR-71 never exhausted its fuel supply, a point illustrated by the following anecdote shared by former Blackbird pilot David Peters.
“There are many stories of the loyalty, bravery, and reliability of our Q-tanker guys. This is a great one for sure.”
“Ed Bethart and I were flying a mission out of Kadena, and it was definitely thunderstorm season. We were in heavy clouds headed to the tanker after takeoff, and as we got DF and distance contact, we couldn’t see a thing. As we closed in, we had our 2000 ft altitude separation and, at a mile, had no contact. So, we told the guys to recheck their altimeter setting because we were coming up a thousand and in 1/2 mile. They confirmed their setting and altitude, and airspeed, so we moved up and in.”
“Still nothing.”
“Restated the whole thing, and we would come up 500 and close to a 1/4 mile. Still nothing, then like bursting through a curtain, there he was, right where he said he was.”
He continues.
“We closed for a hookup and got contact. I noticed that I kept ducking my head because something was hitting the windscreen. It was ice falling off the tanker.”
“I said, ‘Hey Teddy (Ted Bittel), you have Ice coming off.'” Around then, Ed said we were down to 290 knots and still descending. Teddy could hear that over the boom interphone and replied that their throttles had been frozen for the previous half hour, so they were trying to build up speed in anticipation of us getting heavier. In the end, everything worked out, and we took on a full load of fuel.
“However, the weather was so bad. When we tried to climb out, we heard very heavy turbulence, rain, and lightning. Tried three times to accel but got violent unstarts each time. I tried going to manual inlets to open up and try to make it, but it just couldn’t do it, so we opted to abort and return to Kadena.”
“In the debrief, the maintenance guys came in and showed us that the waveguide antennas in the nose were gone, totally eroded by the rain. Then Chief Kelly came in and dropped a 20 lb block of ice on the table. He said it came from the flight control mixer quadrant.”
Peters concludes.
“So, another of those stories where circumstances were incredibly difficult to the point of losing the mission, but not because our incredible Q guys weren’t there for us.”
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Photo by U.S. Air Force and Tony Landis Lockheed
