Post by volkerboehme on Sept 15, 2010 11:01:28 GMT -5
A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF THE BOEING 367 and 377.
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MILITARY AIRLIFT CAPACITY ?
Prior to WW2 no taxpayer anywhere believed that their air force should be equipped with air lift capacity to transport any significant fraction of either their army, or their army's supply needs, around the planet, because taxpayers had never supposed or agreed that they would pay for their navy to have that sea lift capacity either. Empires with large armed forces distributed across countless military and naval bases had always contracted out the substantial sea lift requirement to their nation's private sector shipping lines.
AIRBORNE FORCES.
That only began to change when the concept of 'airborne' forces was invented in Italy in the late 1920s and then extensively adopted by the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Obviously only aeroplanes could air drop paratroops, their vehicles, their light artillery and necessary supply. As the Red Army acquired significant airborne forces during the 1930s the Soviet Air Force needed to acquire tactical transport aircraft. Germany and Japan soon decided that airborne forces were essential and began to catch up, but no other tax payers were willing to fund even those tactical capabilities. In 1939 only the USSR, Germany and Japan had any significant government owned military airlift capacity.
Almost as soon as he became Prime Minister in 1940 Churchill, borrowing from Shakespeare, called for the formation of a ‘Band of Brothers’ to establish a Parachute Corps within the British Army. The RAF then began to acquire substantial numbers of paratroop aircraft too. Two years later, and only after Pearl Harbor, as Japanese paratroops swiftly seized whole islands, key Dutch oil fields and key Dutch oil refineries, the United States would decide to procure airborne forces. By the end of WW2 both the RAF and the USAF had substantial government owned air lift capability, but there were important differences of implementation due to agreed and different post war intentions.
NATIONALISED = MILITARISED ?
In preparation for the coming war the UK's two international airlines, British Airways and Imperial Airways, had been merged and nationalised to become BOAC in August 1939 and were suddenly wholly owned by the UK taxpayer. However air transport across the British Empire was never militarised. Neither the budget, nor the command chain, for strategic transport of forces, or their supply, from base to base, passed to the RN or the RAF. The RAF acquired a budget to procure aircraft, to deliver only the newly created Parachute Corps, only into combat zones, from 1940 onwards.
NEW WORLD ORDER driven by JAPANESE EXPANSIONISM
The purpose of Empire was protection of (exclusivity of) trade. As the Japanese Empire conquered China more and more trading opportunities for both UK and US business were lost and excluded. During the early years of WW2 long running negotiations between the UK and US gave rise to a series of bilateral treaties which specified the conditions under which the US would assist the UK to defeat Germany and the conditions under which the UK would in return allow US forces access to British military and naval bases worldwide pending abolition of the British Empire and the consequential ending of the protectionist trade barriers it represented.
By the end of 1940 the attitude of the US government was already strongly interventionist. The US bilateral treaties with the UK already allowed vital US strategic air lift capacity to sustain air supply to the Chinese Army from British colonies of Hong Kong and Burma so that the Chinese Army could continue the fight against the Japanese Empire. This made the Japanese invasion of the financial centre of Hong Kong and oil rich Burma almost inevitable. The price extracted by the UK was a Lend-Lease armaments agreement favourable to the UK and in flagrant breach of the US Neutrality Act which the US government urgently needed to repeal.
PAX AMERICANA
After Pearl Harbor, with the UK now also facing defeat by Japan across southern Asia, the bilateral treaties between the UK and US became ever more wide ranging and required the UK to transfer secret technology and transfer leadership of the allied coalition to the US. The US government now insisted that after the defeat of Germany and Japan 'Pax Americana' imposed world wide by US armed forces must replace the long standing world wide imposition of 'Pax Britannica' by British armed forces.
These many bilateral agreements which fundamentally changed the way the world worked after WW2 are optimistically referred to by the British as the 'Special Relationship', but are more widely described as the 'New World Order'. The substitution of US cultural, economic and military power, superseding that of the old hated imperial master, was a long cherished goal, made possible by the circumstances of WW2. What the UK had hoped would be temporary and expedient the US was determined should be permanent.
AVIATION HISTORY DOES NOT HAPPEN IN A VACUUM.
Aviation history is driven by geopolitical circumstance. The B367 and B377 arose directly from the determination of the US wartime government to impose a permanently enduring 'New World Order', under US political, economic, and cultural leadership, in which US isolationism would be permanently set aside in favour of frequent and widespread strategic US military interventionism, to ensure a world in which imperial trade protectionism would be criminalised, and 'free trade' would be imposed, opening up all potential markets to US owned businesses.
CHOSEN INSTRUMENTS (OF FOREIGN POLICY).
During 1941 the US air bridge to China was heavily dependent on civilian airlines and PAA in particular. The civilian airliners of the U.S. government's 'chosen instrument' were placed at increasing risk of attack and private sector corporations like PAA lacked the scale and capital base to ramp up strategic delivery of supply at the necessary rate. There were also potential legal problems in the US courts arising from ordering civilian aeroplanes to deliver military supply to a foreign nation at war. The pre war US government soon concluded that a private sector 'chosen instrument' strategy could not ramp up strategic air supply quickly enough in far off places. However prior to Pearl Harbor the US government had no hope of persuading US taxpayers to fund huge world wide US government owned strategic air lift capability.
U.S. STRATEGIC AIRLIFT NATIONALISED AND MILITARISED.
Conversely in the chaotic aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the US government was empowered to do many 'unthinkable' things. Domestic air transport by private sector airlines continued, but all long haul aircraft, even if flying internal services, were requisitioned by the US government and transferred to the USAAC and USN, even if their crews were not. All US owned long haul strategic air transport was suddenly not just nationalised, but actually militarised. New military and naval budgets and associated command chains were quickly created and then massively expanded.
As WW2 progressed new types of strategic transport aircraft were researched, developed, prototyped, tested and purchased by the US taxpayer for use within US military and naval command chains. They were progressively given the responsibility for strategic long haul transportation of all kinds of military/naval personnel and supply, even far away from combat zones. No other government ever made that political choice. The aircraft of Lufthansa operating international services were never seized and militarised, and the Luftwaffe like the RAF only ever had responsibility, a budget, and a command chain, for delivery of airborne forces, their equipment and supply, directly into combat zones. Neither had a budget to specify, research, develop, procure and command strategic air transport assets.
The pre war tactical and isolationist US 'Air Corps' became a much expanded post war independent strategic 'Air Force' with global interventionist responsibilities, ostensibly to ensure the defeat of Japan and Germany in the short term, but in reality as part of a permanent change in US government political will and intention.
PROPLINER PRODUCTION DOMINATED BY GOVERNMENT CONSUMPTION.
Consequently by 1945 the US taxpayer had purchased and now owned almost 90% of all the propliners that had ever been produced in the whole of aviation history, also funding huge military and naval command chains with huge budgets to maintain them, crew them, and train those who would operate them.
With the coming of peace in August 1945 the theoretical possibility arose that the US taxpayer would no longer continue to purchase most of world propliner production every year for US government consumption, and that the USAF and USN might transfer responsibility for strategic air lift back to the private sector, but by then the bilateral treaties between the US and UK had such long term consequences that it was never a real possibility.
Implementation of the New World Order required frequent, rapid, and wide ranging intervention by US forces, giving rise to a need for ever more 'air mobile' forces whose numbers and capability far exceeded the numbers and capability of 'airborne' forces. The US government had also committed to evacuating all casualties of the many new overseas wars by air.
CREATION OF MATS.
In June 1948 the US Department of Defense ordered the USN Naval Air Transport Service and the USAF Air Transport Command to merge, becoming the Military Air Transport Service (MATS) under unified Pentagon command. MATS acquired 766 strategic transports from the USAAF and 54 more from the USN and was by far the largest operator of propliners anywhere. This decision was reversed in January 1966, during the Vietnam War, when the USN regained control over its air transport assets and the USAF component of MATS became the USAF Military Airlift Command (MAC).
Flight simulation enthusiasts tend to associate classic era propliners with airline travel, but real life wasn't like that. The US taxpayer continued to be not just the largest purchaser of world propliner research, development, prototyping, testing and production, but continued to be the dominant purchaser of propliners in peace time as the New World Order was rolled out and Pax Americana duly replaced Pax Britannica. For a decade after WW2 the US taxpayer purchased and consumed more new propliners by value than all the world's airlines and all other air forces in the world put together.
STRATEGIC FAST AIR MOBILE RESPONSE = PRESSURISED = EXPENSIVE.
After WW2 the new self imposed world wide strategic role of the United States required huge numbers of fast, long range, and therefore expensive and pressurised propeller driven aircraft for strategic tanking, strategic transport, strategic bombing, strategic reconnaissance and strategic role training. Since military and naval organisations exhibit very high employee turnover they have huge training requirements and budgets which translate into huge training fleet requirements.
Within the Curtiss and Martin Liner mini tutorial I explained that most of the Convair CV-240s ever built were ordered by the USAF during the Korean War, not for use as transports, but solely for use as T-29 pressurised flying classrooms stuffed with the wireless, radio, navigation, radar and bombing equipment, needed for classic era strategic multi role aircrew training at medium to high level. Post WW2 US strategic military intervention required huge numbers of very expensive pressurised bomber, reconnaissance, transport, tanker, and even training assets, powered by very expensive, very complex piston engines, consuming expensive and complex fuels.
Flight simulation enthusiasts tend to think of aeroplanes like the Boeing Stratocruiser, the Convair Liners and the Lockheed Constellation / Super Constellation family as civilian airliners, but they weren't. The US taxpayer also purchased over 50% of all the (C-69 and C-121) Constellations and Super Constellations ever built and the US taxpayer was about to purchase 95% of the new, larger and extended family of Boeing strategic transports and dual role strategic tanker-transports. The US had purposefully shouldered new and onerous military and naval responsibilities formerly shouldered by the tax payers and armed forces of the British Empire.
LOCAL COUNTER INSURGENCY = SLOW and CHEAP.
After WW2 the UK Glider and Parachute Corps was slowly downsized to a single Parachute Regiment and the British taxpayer only slowly purchased new tactical glider tugs each with the limited performance envelope and range necessary to conduct only combat paratroop counter insurgency operations at low level at short and medium range.
The Vickers Valetta and Handley Page Hastings glider tugs did not need to be powerful, pressurised, complicated or expensive. Towing fragile wooden gliders slowly at low altitude needed no new training or technology. Relegated WW2 bombers would suffice. Nor were a large number of tactical transports needed to insert a single downsized airborne corps into a post war counter insurgency combat zone by air. The UK stood down their glider forces in 1957 when their primary role of airborne forces vehicle transportation was fully taken over by the short range, unpressurised, cheap, lumbering Blackburn Beverly.
The price of the Mutual Defense Aid Program (MADAP) under which Canada and the nations of Europe received military assets, gifted to them by the US taxpayer after WW2, was signing up to the New World Order, along with membership of NATO, granting US forces more bases to deliver it. Germany was again disarmed and under allied occupation.
France received surplus Douglas C-47s and second hand C-119s for paratrooping as a gift from the US taxpayer, but France would eventually withdraw from NATO. The free US supplied aircraft would be augmented by the simple cheap unpressurised Nord Noratlas and a small fleet of cheap unpressurised Breguet Deux Ponts. The French Empire used them all only for paratrooping and regional counter insurgency, until France developed global strategic and nuclear aspirations which required purchase of very limited strategic transport assets in the form of a handful of still cheap and unpressurised Breguet Saharas. Like the British taxpayer the French taxpayer continued to purchase military and naval non combat zone airlift capacity almost entirely from its airlines, as and when required via 'air trooping contracts'.
Unfortunately having acquired no strategic transport assets European paratroop aircraft like the Hastings and Deux Ponts, poorly suited to long haul CASEVAC, were inevitably soon needed instead to ultra long haul casualties away from the many regional conflicts and local counter insurgency operations taking place in Asia.
Make no mistake; the Soviet Air Force had no four engined air transport capability at all until 1959. The 'Cold War', the USSR, and the Soviet occupied nations of the 'Warsaw Pact' played no part in the decision of the US government to procure its own hugely expensive strategic military transport capability. That process had begun in earnest in 1942 when the USSR was a US ally. The New World Order arose from the expansionism of Japan and Germany, not the USSR.
BOEING DOMINATES US STRATEGIC SPENDING.
Numerically, economically, and strategically, by far the most important of the new post war pressurised propliners was the Boeing 367 Stratofreighter which would acquire the USAF designation C-97. The lower lobe of the B367 'double bubble' fuselage is the lower half of the pre existing B345 strategic nuclear bomber fuselage to which the tail, wings, engines and landing gear of that B345 strategic nuclear bomber remain attached.
The Boeing company designation B345 covered both the original B-29 Superfortress and the later B-50 Washington which had a slightly different structure and different engines. Both were strategic bombers with pressure hulls to allow operation at extreme cruising altitudes (by the standards of 1941). The barely different B367 strategic transport was ordered in January 1942, but the first prototype did not fly until November 1944. Several more prototypes followed during a protracted and very expensive development process.
The series production B367 is a B-50 strategic bomber with rear clam shell doors added for the first time in a pressurised aeroplane, and with a bulged upper fuselage to add volume to carry an equivalent payload less dense than conventional bombs. The vehicle ramp through the rear clam shell doors leads directly to the new upper deck in the larger new upper fuselage bubble.
The B-50 strategic bomber and the hardly different C-97 strategic transport therefore share the hugely complex and hugely expensive, Pratt and Whitney 28 cylinder R-4360 Wasp Major piston engine. The huge frontal cross section of the C-97A Stratofreighter strategic transport made it fractionally slower than the B-50 Washington strategic bomber of which it was structurally and dynamically a minor variation, but it was faster than the older, and structurally weaker, B-29 Superfortress (also B345).
DESIGN RANGE.
The role envisaged for all the new strategic transport assets was primarily air supply of the Pacific island bases which had recently been catapulted to strategic importance. As WW2 drew to a close the role expanded to include supply of distant occupation forces in both Japan and Germany. The B367 was however very highly optimised for operation of the trunk routes from the US west coast to Hawaii where personnel and cargo were offloaded and split for onward air transport in different directions by smaller, four engined, strategic airlift propliners. In the early years this was the slow and unpressurised fleet of Douglas R5D and C-54 Skymasters.
SLOW BEGINNING.
A few pre production YC-97s based on the older B-29 airframe and engines entered service during 1947, initially based at what is now Travis AFB, route proving to Hickam AFB in Hawaii, over the B367 design payload delivery range of 2100 miles.
The distance from Gander to Prestwick, is almost identical and of course Britain and the British Dominion of Canada were soon founder members of NATO, assisting in the occupation of Germany, where Wiesbaden and nearby Frankfurt slowly became the primary MATS bases of the B367 era. By June 1948 the USAF was already operating 561 four engined propliners. As the B367 trickled into service the USAF already operated more than three quarters of all the four engined propliners in existence. Four engined propliners were still a strategic military resource sometimes also operated by airlines which were 'chosen instruments' of their government's foreign policy.
STRATEGIC FOCUS moves to BERLIN.
The communist bloc was not a significant factor in any of this procurement. That only began to change with US involvement in the Berlin Air Lift during 1948 which was instrumental in the decision to merge USN and USAF transport capabilities into MATS. The Berlin Airlift confirmed that the private sector could not respond fast enough, and lacked the releasable airlift capacity needed to impose Pax Americana. Consequently during 1948 a single YC-97A briefly became a bulk coal carrier during the Berlin Air Lift and Germany briefly became the primary focus of US strategic air power.
STRATEGIC CAPABILITY = POOR SHORT HAULER.
Fifty series production C-97As, all modifications of the B345 Washington strategic bomber, retaining R-4360 engines, were delivered slowly from 1948 to 1950, but played no further part in the Berlin Air Lift. The low maximum landing weight of these aircraft made them poor tactical short haulers unless they delivered their payload by parachute through the rear clam shells, and that is a very dangerous way to deliver coal to civilians in an urban environment.
Series production military aircraft all had under nose weather and ground mapping radar. They were equipped to drop palletised cargo, or paratroops, by parachute from the rear clam shell doors. From ship #28 onwards B367s also had an additional cargo side door for conventional airline style cargo loading and unloading, or by internal hoist, also to the upper deck.
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STRATEGIC FOCUS moves to HAWAII (not Korea).
By the summer of 1950 imposition of Pax Americana required the United States to be at war in Korea. This both re-emphasised the strategic importance of the central Pacific island bases, and re-affirmed the need for a huge government owned air transport fleet to provide many elements of the US Army with rapid air mobility, not just delivery of 'airborne' forces into combat.
Just as the Berlin airlift had upgraded Germany from somewhere that must be inconveniently occupied, to somewhere needed for force projection, so the Korean War suddenly upgraded the Japanese island chain in the same way. Japan became the main supply base for combat operations in Korea. Japan and the Pusan peninsular of Korea are less than 100 miles apart.
Tokyo was the supply centre for the Korean War. By August 1950 the USAF had some 4,000 personnel based in Korea, but over 25,000 based in Japan. Strategic assets rarely entered the war zone. West of Tokyo the supply route was operated by US Far East Air Force Combat Cargo Command, mostly using C-119s. Make no mistake, even east of Japan, as far as Hawaii, most of the air supply burden for the Korean War fell on Tactical Air Command (TAC), not MATS.
Consequently the new C-97A did not normally operate west of Hawaii during the Korean War. The long island hopping haul to Tokyo was undertaken almost entirely by the unpressurised Douglas C-54 Skymaster. MATS supplied only 40 C-54s while TAC supplied 75 C-54s to run the air bridge between Hawaii and Japan. The rest of the Pacific air bridge was operated by the RCAF, the Belgian Air Force and a few airlines awarded limited trooping contracts.
The USAF C-54s were later augmented by the also unpressurised and barely faster MATS R-4360 powered Douglas C-124 Globemaster also serving mostly within TAC, not MATS during the Korean War. The C-54 and C-124 were better suited to the existing hot island runways west of Hawaii.
The growing number of C-97As continued to fly backwards and forwards to Hawaii, and increasingly to Germany via Canada and the UK.
TROOP TRANSPORT = CASEVAC.
A single YC-97B 'eighty seat VIP military transport' with circular windows and luxury seating, but no cargo doors at all, was inserted into YC-97A production. After evaluation it became the sole C-97B. The fourteen C-97Cs delivered 1950-51 at the height of the Korean War introduced a re-enforced cargo floor to carry specific artillery tractor and artillery loads, but in practice they were urgently converted to MC-97Cs and used for long haul casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) from February 1951.
The Korean war was soon producing far more casualties in need of evacuation than expected. In every 'modern' war a large fraction of the 'troop transports' are soon required for medically equipped casualty evacuation. The CASEVAC role requires very high frequency, quite limited payload, often very long haul air mobility.
For most of aviation history the role designation 'troop transport' has been a convenient euphemism for casualty evacuation aircraft. Most bomber-transport aircraft in the RAF had always been intended primarily for CASEVAC and as explained in earlier contextual histories CASEVAC had quickly become the primary role of the Regia Aeronautica transport fleet during WW2.
In the US it was soon realised that limited casualty payloads would be compatible with evacuation (Seoul) - Tokyo - Elmendorf - Seattle (through Alaska) if B367s were specially adapted to that purpose as MC-97Cs. Elmendorf - Yokota is just over 3000 miles which is very payload limiting for a B367 making it an unsuitable route for delivery of supply. However medical personnel on posting to Korea could be delivered westbound. The casualty burden was soon such that wounded were also being airlifted from Seoul or Okinawa to Manila for long term treatment in US medical facilities in the Philippines, but the MC-97Cs were not involved. Thus B367s were 'just' visible in Japan and very occasionally in Korea during the Korean War.
Early SAC USE OF THE B367.
A few standard C-97As were delivered to Strategic Air Command to provide nuclear weapon air lift support for B-50 nuclear bomber wings, but these played no role in the Korean War even though SAC B-29s based in Okinawa participated.
Although procured to ensure secure nuclear weapon airlift the few SAC C-97As mostly ferried personnel and other types of supply between SAC bases, sometimes on very short hauls. In practice they seem to have functioned mostly as very expensive VIP transports. From September 1950 SAC also procured three C-97D flying command posts.
The only C-97B 'eighty seat military VIP transport', and six further C-97A conversions also became C-97Ds in 1954. During this conversion they all acquired the 2 x 4200lb under-wing tank capability of the B-50, (whose wing they retained), to extend patrol endurance. The three existing C-97Ds also acquired under wing tank capability during 1954.
The Korean War forced everybody to come to terms with the pitiful combat endurance and radius of turbojet powered aircraft. It was soon obvious that they would need to refuel in flight early and often; and that a huge fleet of propliners configured as air to air refueling tankers would be needed to support turbojet combat operations, and if possible long range ferrying of combat jets, reducing the need to misuse aircraft carriers as aircraft transporters.
KC-97 = TANKER + TRANSPORT.
All later B367 propliners were delivered with USAF style single under tail mounted refueling booms in a detachable pod and were designated KC-97 having strategic tanker capability as well as strategic transport capability.
In the early days some KC-97s may have delivered AVGAS from their transfer tanks, but most AVGAS tanking was undertaken by KB-50 aircraft and while strategic bombers still had piston engines most of their target list was within their unrefueled combat radius.
Most KC-97s consumed AVGAS and delivered AVTUR and the early variants were heavily associated with the deployment of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet from late 1951.
However they were all dual role transport-tankers and were easily converted by deletion of the tanking equipment to become pure strategic transports, and as time went by more and more tanker-transports became pure transports. MATS transferred all their Stratofreighters to US Air National Guard units in 1960 and transfer of KC-97 dual role tanker transports to ANG units like this fully transport converted C-97E proceeded through the 1960s.
www.petergoodearl.co.uk/airdays/airdays/wpaper/c97.jpg
Although some C-97As were temporarily used to develop the production KC-97E none were permanently converted. Production of 50 KC-97E tanker transports immediately followed delivery of the final MC-97C Stratofreighter for the ultra long range CASEVAC role in 1951.
MORE POWER.
159 KC-197Fs followed from April 1952. These and all later variants had more powerful engines and were able to operate at much higher weights. After service as strategic tankers many later became C-97F Stratofreighter strategic transports in the Vietnam War era. These dual role aircraft served initially with SAC to refuel B-47 nuclear bombers, but also provided secure transport for nuclear weapons. Each operationally deployed SAC bomber wing of 45 B-47s needed support from a wing of 20 SAC KC-97s in order to reach their strategic targets.
TAC USE OF THE B367.
Consequently delivery of KC-97Gs to Tactical Air Command (TAC) to refuel light strike aircraft did not begin until May 1953, all earlier deliveries being to SAC. The KC-97G dual role tanker-transport was by far the main production variant of this propliner family. In those 592 propliners the transfer fuel tanks occupied just part of a large cargo floor. When there was no fuel in the fuselage transfer tanks cargo could be loaded conventionally via the side cargo door. With no conversion at all, any of the 592 KC-97Gs dual role tanker-transports could carry 96 troops, or more usually up to 69 stretchers plus medical attendants for high frequency CASEVAC over very long ranges.
The KC-97G was the first B367 with standard B-50D strategic nuclear bomber wing pylons retained at delivery allowing it to mount standard B-50D under-wing tanks, each containing an extra 4200lbs of AVGAS to extend the range at which it could establish an AVTUR towline or transfer casualties. The new generation swept wing turbojet strategic bombers like the Boeing B-47 Stratojet had critically short unrefueled combat radii and their final pre target towline of many towlines on each mission had to be ever nearer to Leningrad and Moscow. Improved avionics allowed the radio operator to be omitted from the flight deck crew of the KC-97G which reduced to four.
HUGE PRODUCTION RUN ENDS.
By 1956 MATS alone had an unduplicated scheduled route mileage of 115,000 miles and operated 1,435 transport aircraft of which 610 were four engined.
B367 (KC-97G) production for SAC and TAC ended as B707 (KC-135A) Stratotanker production began on the same line at Renton in 1956. Boeing would once again be given the opportunity to create an airliner at little or no cost to Boeing shareholders, putting shareholders in other aircraft manufacturers at a huge disadvantage, and this time the political disadvantage would be terminal for Douglas.
CONVERSION BEGINS - ELECTRONIC WARFARE.
An unknown number of KC-97Gs were converted to EC-97G Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) gathering configuration from about 1959 onwards. They seem to have evolved for urgent ELINT operations against Cuba from logical bases and probably flew those sorties for a long time. Others may have been configured for Electronic Warfare (EW jamming) or the same aircraft may eventually have been able to perform both roles. Serving in 'Combat Support Squadrons' until 1976 these aircraft usually lacked the tanker tail boom and pretended to be pure transport conversions, but most soon had a large avionics bulge under CG on the port side.
www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Air....hter/0274446/L/
In Europe these were most associated with 7405 and 7406 CSS based at Wiesbaden and 7407 CSS briefly based at nearby Frankfurt. Each 'squadron' typically had three EC-97Gs who pretended to be transport flights to and from Berlin Tempelhof along the Berlin corridors. The East German authorities ensured that all air traffic along the corridors was restricted to 10,000 QNH to limit radio and radar horizon.
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The 7405 CSS also operated several RC-97Gs over the years. Some RC-97Gs mounted a 3.25 ton 'Big Bertha' sideways looking camera which may have been developed for use versus Cuba, but later mapped the terrain either side of the Berlin corridors. They flew to Tempelhof every day for many years. The livery changed over time.
www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Air....hter/1227507/L/
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RC-97Gs and EC-97Gs may also have been used for psychological warfare /propaganda broadcasting and /or air to ground and ground to air communications. Most German based EC-97Gs retained their clam shell doors and did not mount under wing tanks, and normally nor did the RC-97G. The 7407 CSS later relocated to Adana in Turkey, close to the Syrian border, but EC-97Gs serving in small CSS units were no doubt employed alongside conventional tanker-transports wherever they were based overseas.
OTHER KC-97G CONVERSIONS.
There had been no intention to fully convert dual role KC-97Gs to C-97G Stratofreighter configuration by removal of the cabin transfer tanks and refueling boom, but 135 were nevertheless fully converted for use by U.S. National Guard units in 1963-64. They were then able to carry up to 134 troops on short hauls or 83 casualties on medium hauls.
Twenty-nine more KC-97Gs underwent a lesser conversion becoming HC-97G ultra long range Search and Rescue (SAR) aircraft. These seem to have been based alongside KC-97s, flying with them to provide rescue co-ordination and control in the towline area, as well as more diverse SAR duties.
Then 27 KC-97Gs had only their transfer tanks removed. Retaining the refueling boom and operator position connected to nothing, they became urgently needed additional Vietnam War era CASEVAC aircraft. Oddly having undergone much less conversion than a C-97G they became C-97Ks and had a more limited casualty load, but in the long haul CASEVAC role that rarely mattered.
AUXILIARY JETS.
From the end of 1964 onwards a total of 81 KC-97Gs acquired J47 jet engines on the wing pylons which had earlier supported the 4200lb fixed under-wing tanks. These KC-97Ls used their auxiliary power briefly while transferring fuel to the new breed of supersonic jet fighters which could not reduce IAS sufficiently to formate on a KC-97G in level flight while attached to the boom.
This was just a further roll out of the conversion which had been applied to the KB-50 from 1957 onwards. Remember B-50 and C-97 wing structure was identical. Conversions were still being made through the 1970s. MSFS lacks the capability to simulate aircraft with both piston and jet engines, but use of the auxiliary jet engines was anyway very brief within any KC-97L sortie. The idea was to transfer as much of the AVTUR as possible to supersonic strike aircraft, not to consume it!
The last KC-97L was not retired from US National Guard service until at least 1977. All KC-97Ls eventually acquired satellite communication bulges above CG.
www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Air....hter/1265517/L/
COLD WAR STRATEGIC FOCUS moves to EUROPE and MEDITERRANEAN long term.
After the Korean War ended in an ugly draw there followed a decade of growing 'Cold War' which caused the NATO front line in Europe to demand more and more air supply. In particular the ever growing Soviet hunter killer submarine fleet operating in the North Atlantic made air supply across the North Atlantic critical to both rapid re-enforcement and any subsequent re-supply of the NATO front line. For the next decade the primary focus of MATS activity shifted to Europe with fast long haul B367 strategic air supply flowing through Gander/Goose and Prestwick to the NATO European Theatre, else Lajes to the NATO Mediterranean Theatre which included four SAC strategic nuclear bases in French Morocco established in return for covert assistance in French Indo China.
STRATEGIC FOCUS moves to VIETNAM.
The rushed decolonisation demanded of Holland, France, and Britain soon caused great instability right across South East Asia and the focus of US strategic air supply would soon be Vietnam. This would again increase the strategic importance of US Pacific island bases. In accordance with the edicts of Pax Americana they were not decolonised. They were increasingly militarised.
USAF units operating C-119 tactical transport aircraft in false French Air Force markings were deployed to Vietnam from November 1953 while Vietnam was still a French colony. By May 1954 the US taxpayer was funding 80% of all air logistics in French Indo China. In May 1955 the USAF replaced the French Air Force as advisors and instructors to the fledgling Vietnamese Air Force within the newly decolonised Vietnam. The last French forces departed in July 1956.
The first US air power acknowledged as such, in the form of 15 TRS flying RF-101 Voodoos arrived at Tahn Son Nut in October 1961. They were followed in December 1961 by two companies of US Army transport helicopters flying ARVN units on combat counter insurgency missions. A few days later the C-123s of 346 TCS arrived to provide in country logistic support alongside the UC-123Cs of 364 TCS who began the defoliation of Vietnam using 'Agent Orange'. By December 1962 there were over 10,000 US armed forces 'advisors' and 'instructors' based in Vietnam.
B367 BASED IN VIETNAM.
The first EC-97G arrived to begin ELINT, and perhaps EW sorties, from Tahn Son Nut in February 1963. It replaced the EC-54H which had been providing ELINT/EW since April 1962 and the sole EC-97G present at any one time probably flew sorties quite widely over South East Asia until relieved by the USAF RC-130As operating out of Don Muang (Bangkok) in July 1964. USN C-121K and EC-121M Super Constellation ELINT / EW / AEW / AWACS sorties from Da Nang did not begin until the war became 'official' a few days later.
VIETNAM AIR SUPPLY LOGISTICS.
In theory the 'Vietnam War' did not begin until a suitable 'cause celebre' was created early in August 1964. By December 1964 the US Army alone had 510 aircraft based in Vietnam and was already the largest aircraft user in South East Asia. There were now 23,000 US armed forces personnel based in Vietnam and the need for air supply and CASEVAC was growing fast. More and more B367 tanker transports serving with SAC and TAC were converted to pure transport configuration and after transfer to ANG units a few were soon hauling all the way to Vietnam and / or evacuating casualties across the Pacific.
However most of the trans Pacific workload arising from the Vietnam War fell on newer, faster, transport aircraft. To a significant extent the B367s of the ANG relieved those faster aircraft of their duties everywhere else and away from the combat zone. B367s seem to have been almost as rare sight in Vietnam as they had been in Korea. B367s worked harder everywhere during the Vietnam War, and the focus shifted from tanking to logistics, but it seems that the B367 was not particularly 'involved' within South East Asia. It remained far more visible in Hawaii, the CONUS and on the NATO front line in Europe.
It is the nature of strategic assets that they are always in the background while tactical assets are highly visible on the front line. By employing their B367s for up to 25 years, and in several different roles, usually far from combat zones and with low losses, the US taxpayer achieved value for money from their billion dollar propliner purchase. Although much more capable their replacements would also be much more expensive.
THE END OF MATS - FIRST US NAVY B367.
The Vietnam War spawned the de-merger of USAF and USN strategic transport assets in 1966 and so it came to pass that late in life at least one C-97K Stratofreighter served with the USN, probably based at and providing logistics support to NAWS China Lake.
B367 EXPORTED TO ISRAEL.
During 1965 one KC-97F, six KC-97Gs and two EC-97Gs were supplied second hand to the Israeli Air Force to promote and enable extended range strike missions with the newly supplied Douglas A-4 Skyhawks, and to greatly upgrade accompanying Israeli airborne electronic warfare capability. The IAF quickly converted the tankers to have the superior British (Cobham) multiple flexible hose and receiver system, also used by the USN and USMC, which requires no boom operator and reduces time on towline by feeding multiple chicks. The British style hose refueling pods were mounted where the USAF under-wing tanks had been.
The USAF style boom was retained, or later added back, for use with later types of aircraft supplied to Israel. In the photo linked below note that the tanker is diving nose down sustaining Mach max operation (making a toboggan run) and is close to zero AoA while the F-4 has to co-descend nose up with high AoA to sustain the same limited IAS at high level, in order to formate and refuel at B367 Mach (max operating). The survivors served with the IAF until 1978.
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This was the problem that the KC-97L conversion avoided. With both J47s burning the KC-97L could sustain Mmo in level flight at high level thus avoiding the need to toboggan downhill in the towline.
www.swaviator.com/images/issues/photosND02/kc97withjet.jpg
Since the A-4 Skyhawk could not use a boom to refuel, IAF tankers could not have auxiliary jets, and could only be KC-97Fs or KC-97Gs without under wing tanks. The Israeli F-4s were dual capability which allowed KC-130s to replace their KC-97s eventually.
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In 1960s Israel the B367 and B377 were known as the Boeing Anak (Giant).
STRATEGIC FOCUS switches to AFRICA - USAF B367s LEASED TO 'CIVILIANS'.
More hasty decolonisation in Africa soon caused widespread political instability there too. As the situation in South East Asia progressed from bad to worse more and more US government owned aircraft avoided proclaiming their ownership and were 'leased' to third parties for operation in war zones.
During the late 1960s B367 Stratofreighters leased from the US ANG, flown by 'volunteer' US aircrew, started to turn up in African war zones. Some may have been legitimate charitable relief flights, and others probably not. In any event delivery of food and medical aid to one armed rebel faction was not regarded as a neutral act by the recognised government.
www.aerofiles.com/boe-c97g.jpg
Joint Church Aid leased five ANG B367s and based them in Sao Tome (FPST).
The US ANG also leased B367s to the Israeli owned, but Swiss based airline Balair. During the 'Biafra War' five 'Balair' B367s with Swiss registrations, based at Cotonou (DBBB), had Balair titles on one side and Red Cross titles on the other. Maintained by fifty Israelis employed by Israeli Aircraft Industries, but flown by volunteer US aircrew, they delivered 16 tons of food and medical aid to the Biafran rebels via the airstrip at Uli on each flight, landing only at night of course. Uli is not available in MSFS so the airfield at Oshogbo (DNOS) should be substituted. Within MSFS we must locate the airfield solely by following the river from the coast at night. This made it relatively easy for the government to decide where to site its Flak batteries.
FIRST B367 SHOT DOWN IN COMBAT.
During 1969 it seems that at least one B367 was shot down by Nigerian government Flak while en route to Uli becoming the first B367 lost in combat. Another belly landed at Uli becoming the second. Many were hit by Flak en route to Uli. Returning from Uli they did not need to follow the river. This relief operation to the rebels was supervised by Colonel Dewy of the US ANG throughout who supplied all spare parts required.
www24.brinkster.com/arnon1/biafra/002_c-97g_pima%5B1%5D.jpg
Balair also maintained the five C-97s in 'Joint Church Aid' titles wearing US civil registrations at Sao Tome, whose spares were also supplied by the US ANG. During 1970 the Nigerian government eventually managed to regain control and the Biafran rebellion was crushed.
THIRD B367 COMBAT LOSS.
The IAF EC-97Gs could carry under wing tanks for extended time on station at FL300. In the early 1970s one of the two IAF EC-97Gs was shot down during an EW patrol when it was hit by an SA-2 missile. During the period of 'peace' between the end of the 'Six Day War' in 1967 and the start of the 'Yom Kippur' war in 1973 at least 36 IAF fixed wing aircraft were shot down by Egypt and Syria, while 113 Egyptian and Syrian fixed wing aircraft were shot down by Israel. Pax Americana was taking on a new and dangerous dimension even as US ground forces were being defeated in South East Asia.
B367 EXPORTED TO SPAIN.
During 1973 three ex USAF KC-97Ls were sold to the Spanish Air Force and were based at Torrejon to support F-4 Phantom II long range training sorties and ferry flights. Note retained NATO satellite communication equipment above fuselage.
www.airliners.net/photo/Spain---A....hter/0153053/L/
www.airliners.net/photo/Spain---A....hter/0151736/L/
These were most likely the last B367s in military service anywhere.
FIRST CIVILIAN B367 OWNERS.
USAF B367s were eventually auctioned off, mostly for scrap, but a few were brought into compliance with FAA certification requirements, and genuinely registered with the FAA. At least one became a water (forest fire) bomber operated by Hawkins and Powers on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management in Alaska.
www.airliners.net/photo/Bureau-of....hter/0268244/L/
www.airliners.net/photo/Hawkins-a....hter/0463869/L/
Agro Air of the Dominican Republic used at least two demilitarised B367s to fly cargo into Santo Domingo from Miami. Originally KC-97Ls the jet engines and all the USAF avionics were removed before sale along with the under wing tank capability. These demilitarised ex tanker Stratofreighters also lost their more powerful engines and therefore shared the flight dynamics of the original C-97A as present within MSFS.
www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-....hter/0785768/L/
www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled-....hter/0162207/M/
A single Mexican C-97G XA-PII also flew on until about 1991 with Aero Pacifico. Nominally based in the Baja province of Mexico it had to return to Tucson each time it needed significant maintenance.
www.drawdecal.com/aeropacifico/xa_pii8.jpg
B377 STRATOCRUISER - AIR MAIL CONTRACTS = OVERT SUBSIDY
Before we examine the history of the B377 Stratocruiser we must be aware that after WW2 major US airlines were granted international route licenses, and more importantly very lucrative Foreign Air Mail (FAM) contracts, as part of an integrated plan to use their strategic airlift capacity in a supplementary role in pursuit of the wide ranging economic goals of the New World Order. Few US airlines were willing to establish passenger services overseas that did not deliver a lucrative government FAM contract, as well as the possibility of carrying military or naval personnel with great frequency to places of strategic importance to Pax Americana.
In due course the major airlines would be augmented by 'supplemental carriers' who had no entitlement to air mail subsidies, but the focus of their supplementary operations was also mostly along the same strategic routes linking US military and naval bases which generated little private sector demand for air travel.
COVERT SUBSIDIES.
Way back in November 1945, almost four years after the US taxpayer became committed to funding research, development, prototyping and testing of both the R-4360 and the B367, and with that funding already in place, Boeing persuaded PAA to order a simpler civilian spin off from the C-97B 'eighty seat VIP military transport', to be known as the B377 Stratocruiser. The spin doctors of the US government, Boeing and PAA were soon busy persuading the media to broadcast the idea that the new Boeing strategic transport was being sponsored and developed at the cost of Boeing and PAA shareholders, but of course it wasn't.
It suited PAA and the few other airlines who ordered the B377 in 1945-46 to pretend that they had the capital resources to fund such a program and that they would take delivery of B377s in 1947-48, generously allowing the USAF to procure cheap spin offs from their private sector investment, but of course all the contractual guarantees ensured the opposite. The airlines had every intention of waiting until the US taxpayer had paid most of the development costs, and had paid to fix all the bugs, before production of their simpler airliner spin offs began several years later than their post order publicity claimed. PAA and Boeing shareholders did fund a single B377 prototype, but it was needed to procure civil type certification rather than for expensive structural and propulsion development testing.
EIGHTY SEAT VIP LONG HAUL MILITARY TRANSPORT ?
Which is no doubt why US taxpayers found themselves funding the research, development, prototyping and testing costs of a single suspiciously short lived C-97B 'eighty seat military VIP transport'. Problems arising from the elimination of the clam shell doors, installation of multiple round windows, and installation of a luxury interior, were explored and rectified in that single C-97B at US taxpayer expense, and then copied in the first B377-026 for PAA. The single C-97B was soon converted to become a quite different and more useful C-97D SAC airborne command post.
B377s DESIGNATED WITHIN THE B367 SEQUENCE.
Before construction of the first series production B377 for PAA began B367 construction was already at modification state 25 and so the PAA aircraft were all B377-026 Stratocruisers numbered in the military B367 modification number series, as were all subsequent civilian B377 Stratocruisers tacked onto the already guaranteed US government order.
While selling B367s incorporating expensive pressure hull clam shell doors to the USAF for less than 1.25 million USD each, Boeing demanded 1.27 to 1.65 million USD for each simpler to manufacture B377. Consequently like the earlier ill fated minor conversion of the B-17 Flying Fortress into the B307 Stratoliner, despite most development costs again being borne by the US taxpayer, the B377 Stratocruiser would again be too complex and too expensive to attract many private sector customers, and those who purchased it once again struggled to make profits with it.
BRITISH AIRCRAFT STUCTURAL FAILURES.
Meanwhile a series of unexplained losses involving Avro Tudor's of BSAA, (and other fatal crashes), caused that airline to have its route licenses revoked and taken over by BOAC. With the Tudor unavailable BOAC urgently needed an immediately available trans Atlantic replacement. Funded by the Swedish taxpayer the SAS precursor airline Svensk Interkontinental Lufttrafik Aktiebolag (SILA) had ordered four B377s for early delivery with the intention of using them on trans Atlantic services. Offered an instant profit SILA sensibly decided to sell their four B377s to BOAC while they were still on the production line at Renton.
B377 FAILS to SELL and B377 SAFETY CONCERNS.
Consequently only PAA, AOA, UAL and BOAC ever took delivery of Stratocruisers directly from Boeing, and American Overseas Airlines were almost immediately taken over by PAA. The B377 had a flight deck crew of five (P1 + P2 + NAV + FE + RO), and typically four or five more cabin crew on the two passenger decks. Only fifty-six Stratocruisers were built for private sector consumption, including the prototype used for civil certification. Deliveries to airlines were delayed until 1949-50, four years after PAA, AOA, NWA and UAL had trumpeted their orders.
Ten of the fifty-five production aircraft (18%) would suffer total loss crashes over the next ten years, but three of those caused no fatalities. However two others had pressurised cabin doors open in flight causing fatalities, and so nine of the commercial fleet (16%) were involved in fatal accidents which killed 140 passengers and crew within ten years. The surrounding publicity did nothing to improve ticket sales.
PAA INAUGURAL ROUTES.
PAA inaugurated both San Francisco - Honolulu and New York - Bermuda services with the B377 in April 1949. Then New York - Gander - Shannon - London services followed in July 1949 as more B377-026s were slowly delivered. Both Los Angeles - Honolulu and Seattle - Portland - Honolulu were soon added. After the Korean War began PAA services soon expanded along the Pacific island chains to Japan, and further into Asia via the Philippines, ( see below).
AOA ROUTES and QUICK DEMISE.
The eight B377s for American Overseas Airlines were B377-029s and AOA inaugurated their competing New York - Boston - (Gander) - Shannon - London service in direct competition with PAA in August 1949. These flights from Boston only stopped at Gander eastbound if less than maximum fuel was loaded allowing AOA to claim direct service from the US to the UK, however infrequent in practice, to the discomfort of PAA. From October 1949 the AOA route extended to Frankfurt.
From January 1950 AOA also flew New York - Boston - (Goose) - Prestwick - Amsterdam. From a PAA perspective AOA therefore had to be removed from competition, and quickly. After bitter opposition an increased PAA bid of 18.3 million USD for AOA was finally approved by the US government in September 1950 and the PAA B377 fleet swelled to 29.
BOAC INUAGURAL ROUTES.
Purchase of the four B377-028s ordered by SILA allowed BOAC B377s to compete against PAA and AOA B377s during 1949 flying New York - Gander - London or New York - Goose - Prestwick - London (depending on both winds and payload). BOAC had no rights to serve Shannon and so tracked further north more often and used Goose in combination with Prestwick more often. Similarly PAA Super Stratocruisers (see later) from London and Paris timetabled non stop to NY often tracked over Glasgow and Goose. Although not timetabled to land at either Prestwick or Goose, they often flight planned to do so.
NOT LUXURIOUS ENOUGH.
The New World Order was being rolled out, but meanwhile this was still the swan song of the Imperial age, in which old inherited money dominated purchasing power. This was still the heyday of the luxury ocean liner. Hardly any civilians had ever crossed oceans by air. Those who could afford to occupy the upper decks of the many luxury ocean liners had copious time to waste in great luxury. They were in no hurry to arrive.
The B377 belongs to the last gasp of aviation history when the only airlines granted licences to carry passengers across the North Atlantic or Pacific existed to serve only the under employed super rich. The airlines which were the 'chosen instruments' of national governments were propaganda tools of those governments. The imperial powers who still owned the airspace over their imperial colonies controlled who had access to each international air route. The land masses of the North Atlantic still belonged to the British Empire, the Danish Empire and the Portuguese Empire; and that did not please the United States at all.
All other trans Oceanic routes had tiny levels of civilian passenger demand compared to the shipping lanes between North America and Europe. The few airlines allowed to compete with the still politically powerful shipping lines were subsidised to provide services to the same super rich few, who therefore had to be lured away from ocean liner 'luxury' with smoking lounges, 'opulent' cloakrooms, and 'spacious' cocktail bars, even in aeroplanes. B377 passengers could even book a personal and private suite or 'stateroom' with its own lavatory and personal servant so that they did not need to mix with the not quite so wealthy.
The trouble was, having crossed an ocean by air once, so they could boast that they had, most never bothered again. Either it wasn't luxurious enough, or entertaining enough, or the luxury and entertainment was too short lived. In truth the airlines could never compete with the great ocean liners in terms of luxury and entertainment for the under employed super wealthy.
If you can find a picture of the 'luxurious' lounge area provided by PAA ask yourself if you would hire it to host a party for thirteen very wealthy guests. Just because airline publicity material makes wild claims, eagerly plagiarised by journalists and 'historians' too lazy to do anything other than regurgitate publicity hand outs as 'news' or 'history' does not mean that we have to take corporate publicity claims at face value. Make no mistake many B377 passengers were disappointed by the reality.
NOT FAST ENOUGH.
This was the 'wired age'. Chief executives did business by telephone, and telex, not by air travel, and 'celebrities' were not yet expected to promote their latest film on two continents in two days. Trans oceanic travel was an experience only those with inherited fortunes could afford. This was the era when propliner captains refused approach clearance and continued in the holding pattern for another forty minutes to allow the silver service breakfast to be served uninterrupted. Super wealthy passengers were not woken for landing, or even after landing. They were allowed to sleep on in their heavy luxury bunks with the air conditioning running for hours after arrival at destination. The super rich purchased a luxurious silver service travel experience, and luxury sleeping accommodation, not rapid mass transit.
But times were changing. As the New World Order was rolled out old money was giving way to new money. Once the monopolistic political power of the Hollywood film moguls was defeated and Americans were allowed to have television, just like Europeans, the new cult of celebrity had a new powerful vehicle which required constant promotion by 'live' appearances and suddenly so did the advertising of corporate brand names within a new world order in which US corporations were no longer excluded by imperial protectionism.
As planned the new world economy was globalising. The new 'free trade agreements' allowed corporations to become 'multi national'. The CEO rarely strayed from the luxury of his national corporate HQ, but more and more 'sales executives' were dispatched to more and more far away places to sell, sell, sell through personal contacts. Those corporations now wanted to use airlines to transport sales forces, to sell a business proposition, by personal contact and live appearance, but those corporations did not need the travel involved to be luxurious for those they employed to undertake it. Even the 'sales executives' and the 'celebrities' wanted to be selling their proposition at destination, not trapped in transit for any longer than necessary. Suddenly 'time was money'. Increasingly this wasn't just true of trans oceanic travel.
PAA RESPONSE.
Very few passengers could afford trans oceanic travel by B377. Accordingly from 1st May 1952 PAA offered cramped 82 seat DC6B 'Rainbow Class' services via Gander and Prestwick or Shannon, to London and beyond, at much lower fares than the B377 'President Class', making 'non stop' B377 losses worse for both themselves and BOAC. In 1953 the tariff was $711 President Class vs $495 Rainbow Class (NY-London one way). A berth was $35 extra on top of the first class ticket.
BOAC RESPONSE.
BOAC procured second hand L749 Constellations to perform the same tourist class role. At this time all international airlines operated as a cartel via IATA which imposed the same fares on all airlines. The new tourist class fares across the Atlantic were 'cheap' only by comparison to the identical 'first class' only fares on the B377 services.
Remember the North Atlantic routes were not BOAC's priority routes. BOAC inaugurated Comet 1 jet services through British East Africa to South Africa on 2nd May 1952.
TWA RESPONSE.
TWA moved in the opposite direction. In 1956 they introduced the L1049G Super Constellation which delivered longer range than the standard B377 so that they could offer New York direct to London or Paris (with the tailwind above the Gulf Stream). This together with cheaper TWA L749 and other airline's DC6B services very badly damaged PAA and BOAC B377 revenues.
Continued in next post...
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MILITARY AIRLIFT CAPACITY ?
Prior to WW2 no taxpayer anywhere believed that their air force should be equipped with air lift capacity to transport any significant fraction of either their army, or their army's supply needs, around the planet, because taxpayers had never supposed or agreed that they would pay for their navy to have that sea lift capacity either. Empires with large armed forces distributed across countless military and naval bases had always contracted out the substantial sea lift requirement to their nation's private sector shipping lines.
AIRBORNE FORCES.
That only began to change when the concept of 'airborne' forces was invented in Italy in the late 1920s and then extensively adopted by the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Obviously only aeroplanes could air drop paratroops, their vehicles, their light artillery and necessary supply. As the Red Army acquired significant airborne forces during the 1930s the Soviet Air Force needed to acquire tactical transport aircraft. Germany and Japan soon decided that airborne forces were essential and began to catch up, but no other tax payers were willing to fund even those tactical capabilities. In 1939 only the USSR, Germany and Japan had any significant government owned military airlift capacity.
Almost as soon as he became Prime Minister in 1940 Churchill, borrowing from Shakespeare, called for the formation of a ‘Band of Brothers’ to establish a Parachute Corps within the British Army. The RAF then began to acquire substantial numbers of paratroop aircraft too. Two years later, and only after Pearl Harbor, as Japanese paratroops swiftly seized whole islands, key Dutch oil fields and key Dutch oil refineries, the United States would decide to procure airborne forces. By the end of WW2 both the RAF and the USAF had substantial government owned air lift capability, but there were important differences of implementation due to agreed and different post war intentions.
NATIONALISED = MILITARISED ?
In preparation for the coming war the UK's two international airlines, British Airways and Imperial Airways, had been merged and nationalised to become BOAC in August 1939 and were suddenly wholly owned by the UK taxpayer. However air transport across the British Empire was never militarised. Neither the budget, nor the command chain, for strategic transport of forces, or their supply, from base to base, passed to the RN or the RAF. The RAF acquired a budget to procure aircraft, to deliver only the newly created Parachute Corps, only into combat zones, from 1940 onwards.
NEW WORLD ORDER driven by JAPANESE EXPANSIONISM
The purpose of Empire was protection of (exclusivity of) trade. As the Japanese Empire conquered China more and more trading opportunities for both UK and US business were lost and excluded. During the early years of WW2 long running negotiations between the UK and US gave rise to a series of bilateral treaties which specified the conditions under which the US would assist the UK to defeat Germany and the conditions under which the UK would in return allow US forces access to British military and naval bases worldwide pending abolition of the British Empire and the consequential ending of the protectionist trade barriers it represented.
By the end of 1940 the attitude of the US government was already strongly interventionist. The US bilateral treaties with the UK already allowed vital US strategic air lift capacity to sustain air supply to the Chinese Army from British colonies of Hong Kong and Burma so that the Chinese Army could continue the fight against the Japanese Empire. This made the Japanese invasion of the financial centre of Hong Kong and oil rich Burma almost inevitable. The price extracted by the UK was a Lend-Lease armaments agreement favourable to the UK and in flagrant breach of the US Neutrality Act which the US government urgently needed to repeal.
PAX AMERICANA
After Pearl Harbor, with the UK now also facing defeat by Japan across southern Asia, the bilateral treaties between the UK and US became ever more wide ranging and required the UK to transfer secret technology and transfer leadership of the allied coalition to the US. The US government now insisted that after the defeat of Germany and Japan 'Pax Americana' imposed world wide by US armed forces must replace the long standing world wide imposition of 'Pax Britannica' by British armed forces.
These many bilateral agreements which fundamentally changed the way the world worked after WW2 are optimistically referred to by the British as the 'Special Relationship', but are more widely described as the 'New World Order'. The substitution of US cultural, economic and military power, superseding that of the old hated imperial master, was a long cherished goal, made possible by the circumstances of WW2. What the UK had hoped would be temporary and expedient the US was determined should be permanent.
AVIATION HISTORY DOES NOT HAPPEN IN A VACUUM.
Aviation history is driven by geopolitical circumstance. The B367 and B377 arose directly from the determination of the US wartime government to impose a permanently enduring 'New World Order', under US political, economic, and cultural leadership, in which US isolationism would be permanently set aside in favour of frequent and widespread strategic US military interventionism, to ensure a world in which imperial trade protectionism would be criminalised, and 'free trade' would be imposed, opening up all potential markets to US owned businesses.
CHOSEN INSTRUMENTS (OF FOREIGN POLICY).
During 1941 the US air bridge to China was heavily dependent on civilian airlines and PAA in particular. The civilian airliners of the U.S. government's 'chosen instrument' were placed at increasing risk of attack and private sector corporations like PAA lacked the scale and capital base to ramp up strategic delivery of supply at the necessary rate. There were also potential legal problems in the US courts arising from ordering civilian aeroplanes to deliver military supply to a foreign nation at war. The pre war US government soon concluded that a private sector 'chosen instrument' strategy could not ramp up strategic air supply quickly enough in far off places. However prior to Pearl Harbor the US government had no hope of persuading US taxpayers to fund huge world wide US government owned strategic air lift capability.
U.S. STRATEGIC AIRLIFT NATIONALISED AND MILITARISED.
Conversely in the chaotic aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the US government was empowered to do many 'unthinkable' things. Domestic air transport by private sector airlines continued, but all long haul aircraft, even if flying internal services, were requisitioned by the US government and transferred to the USAAC and USN, even if their crews were not. All US owned long haul strategic air transport was suddenly not just nationalised, but actually militarised. New military and naval budgets and associated command chains were quickly created and then massively expanded.
As WW2 progressed new types of strategic transport aircraft were researched, developed, prototyped, tested and purchased by the US taxpayer for use within US military and naval command chains. They were progressively given the responsibility for strategic long haul transportation of all kinds of military/naval personnel and supply, even far away from combat zones. No other government ever made that political choice. The aircraft of Lufthansa operating international services were never seized and militarised, and the Luftwaffe like the RAF only ever had responsibility, a budget, and a command chain, for delivery of airborne forces, their equipment and supply, directly into combat zones. Neither had a budget to specify, research, develop, procure and command strategic air transport assets.
The pre war tactical and isolationist US 'Air Corps' became a much expanded post war independent strategic 'Air Force' with global interventionist responsibilities, ostensibly to ensure the defeat of Japan and Germany in the short term, but in reality as part of a permanent change in US government political will and intention.
PROPLINER PRODUCTION DOMINATED BY GOVERNMENT CONSUMPTION.
Consequently by 1945 the US taxpayer had purchased and now owned almost 90% of all the propliners that had ever been produced in the whole of aviation history, also funding huge military and naval command chains with huge budgets to maintain them, crew them, and train those who would operate them.
With the coming of peace in August 1945 the theoretical possibility arose that the US taxpayer would no longer continue to purchase most of world propliner production every year for US government consumption, and that the USAF and USN might transfer responsibility for strategic air lift back to the private sector, but by then the bilateral treaties between the US and UK had such long term consequences that it was never a real possibility.
Implementation of the New World Order required frequent, rapid, and wide ranging intervention by US forces, giving rise to a need for ever more 'air mobile' forces whose numbers and capability far exceeded the numbers and capability of 'airborne' forces. The US government had also committed to evacuating all casualties of the many new overseas wars by air.
CREATION OF MATS.
In June 1948 the US Department of Defense ordered the USN Naval Air Transport Service and the USAF Air Transport Command to merge, becoming the Military Air Transport Service (MATS) under unified Pentagon command. MATS acquired 766 strategic transports from the USAAF and 54 more from the USN and was by far the largest operator of propliners anywhere. This decision was reversed in January 1966, during the Vietnam War, when the USN regained control over its air transport assets and the USAF component of MATS became the USAF Military Airlift Command (MAC).
Flight simulation enthusiasts tend to associate classic era propliners with airline travel, but real life wasn't like that. The US taxpayer continued to be not just the largest purchaser of world propliner research, development, prototyping, testing and production, but continued to be the dominant purchaser of propliners in peace time as the New World Order was rolled out and Pax Americana duly replaced Pax Britannica. For a decade after WW2 the US taxpayer purchased and consumed more new propliners by value than all the world's airlines and all other air forces in the world put together.
STRATEGIC FAST AIR MOBILE RESPONSE = PRESSURISED = EXPENSIVE.
After WW2 the new self imposed world wide strategic role of the United States required huge numbers of fast, long range, and therefore expensive and pressurised propeller driven aircraft for strategic tanking, strategic transport, strategic bombing, strategic reconnaissance and strategic role training. Since military and naval organisations exhibit very high employee turnover they have huge training requirements and budgets which translate into huge training fleet requirements.
Within the Curtiss and Martin Liner mini tutorial I explained that most of the Convair CV-240s ever built were ordered by the USAF during the Korean War, not for use as transports, but solely for use as T-29 pressurised flying classrooms stuffed with the wireless, radio, navigation, radar and bombing equipment, needed for classic era strategic multi role aircrew training at medium to high level. Post WW2 US strategic military intervention required huge numbers of very expensive pressurised bomber, reconnaissance, transport, tanker, and even training assets, powered by very expensive, very complex piston engines, consuming expensive and complex fuels.
Flight simulation enthusiasts tend to think of aeroplanes like the Boeing Stratocruiser, the Convair Liners and the Lockheed Constellation / Super Constellation family as civilian airliners, but they weren't. The US taxpayer also purchased over 50% of all the (C-69 and C-121) Constellations and Super Constellations ever built and the US taxpayer was about to purchase 95% of the new, larger and extended family of Boeing strategic transports and dual role strategic tanker-transports. The US had purposefully shouldered new and onerous military and naval responsibilities formerly shouldered by the tax payers and armed forces of the British Empire.
LOCAL COUNTER INSURGENCY = SLOW and CHEAP.
After WW2 the UK Glider and Parachute Corps was slowly downsized to a single Parachute Regiment and the British taxpayer only slowly purchased new tactical glider tugs each with the limited performance envelope and range necessary to conduct only combat paratroop counter insurgency operations at low level at short and medium range.
The Vickers Valetta and Handley Page Hastings glider tugs did not need to be powerful, pressurised, complicated or expensive. Towing fragile wooden gliders slowly at low altitude needed no new training or technology. Relegated WW2 bombers would suffice. Nor were a large number of tactical transports needed to insert a single downsized airborne corps into a post war counter insurgency combat zone by air. The UK stood down their glider forces in 1957 when their primary role of airborne forces vehicle transportation was fully taken over by the short range, unpressurised, cheap, lumbering Blackburn Beverly.
The price of the Mutual Defense Aid Program (MADAP) under which Canada and the nations of Europe received military assets, gifted to them by the US taxpayer after WW2, was signing up to the New World Order, along with membership of NATO, granting US forces more bases to deliver it. Germany was again disarmed and under allied occupation.
France received surplus Douglas C-47s and second hand C-119s for paratrooping as a gift from the US taxpayer, but France would eventually withdraw from NATO. The free US supplied aircraft would be augmented by the simple cheap unpressurised Nord Noratlas and a small fleet of cheap unpressurised Breguet Deux Ponts. The French Empire used them all only for paratrooping and regional counter insurgency, until France developed global strategic and nuclear aspirations which required purchase of very limited strategic transport assets in the form of a handful of still cheap and unpressurised Breguet Saharas. Like the British taxpayer the French taxpayer continued to purchase military and naval non combat zone airlift capacity almost entirely from its airlines, as and when required via 'air trooping contracts'.
Unfortunately having acquired no strategic transport assets European paratroop aircraft like the Hastings and Deux Ponts, poorly suited to long haul CASEVAC, were inevitably soon needed instead to ultra long haul casualties away from the many regional conflicts and local counter insurgency operations taking place in Asia.
Make no mistake; the Soviet Air Force had no four engined air transport capability at all until 1959. The 'Cold War', the USSR, and the Soviet occupied nations of the 'Warsaw Pact' played no part in the decision of the US government to procure its own hugely expensive strategic military transport capability. That process had begun in earnest in 1942 when the USSR was a US ally. The New World Order arose from the expansionism of Japan and Germany, not the USSR.
BOEING DOMINATES US STRATEGIC SPENDING.
Numerically, economically, and strategically, by far the most important of the new post war pressurised propliners was the Boeing 367 Stratofreighter which would acquire the USAF designation C-97. The lower lobe of the B367 'double bubble' fuselage is the lower half of the pre existing B345 strategic nuclear bomber fuselage to which the tail, wings, engines and landing gear of that B345 strategic nuclear bomber remain attached.
The Boeing company designation B345 covered both the original B-29 Superfortress and the later B-50 Washington which had a slightly different structure and different engines. Both were strategic bombers with pressure hulls to allow operation at extreme cruising altitudes (by the standards of 1941). The barely different B367 strategic transport was ordered in January 1942, but the first prototype did not fly until November 1944. Several more prototypes followed during a protracted and very expensive development process.
The series production B367 is a B-50 strategic bomber with rear clam shell doors added for the first time in a pressurised aeroplane, and with a bulged upper fuselage to add volume to carry an equivalent payload less dense than conventional bombs. The vehicle ramp through the rear clam shell doors leads directly to the new upper deck in the larger new upper fuselage bubble.
The B-50 strategic bomber and the hardly different C-97 strategic transport therefore share the hugely complex and hugely expensive, Pratt and Whitney 28 cylinder R-4360 Wasp Major piston engine. The huge frontal cross section of the C-97A Stratofreighter strategic transport made it fractionally slower than the B-50 Washington strategic bomber of which it was structurally and dynamically a minor variation, but it was faster than the older, and structurally weaker, B-29 Superfortress (also B345).
DESIGN RANGE.
The role envisaged for all the new strategic transport assets was primarily air supply of the Pacific island bases which had recently been catapulted to strategic importance. As WW2 drew to a close the role expanded to include supply of distant occupation forces in both Japan and Germany. The B367 was however very highly optimised for operation of the trunk routes from the US west coast to Hawaii where personnel and cargo were offloaded and split for onward air transport in different directions by smaller, four engined, strategic airlift propliners. In the early years this was the slow and unpressurised fleet of Douglas R5D and C-54 Skymasters.
SLOW BEGINNING.
A few pre production YC-97s based on the older B-29 airframe and engines entered service during 1947, initially based at what is now Travis AFB, route proving to Hickam AFB in Hawaii, over the B367 design payload delivery range of 2100 miles.
The distance from Gander to Prestwick, is almost identical and of course Britain and the British Dominion of Canada were soon founder members of NATO, assisting in the occupation of Germany, where Wiesbaden and nearby Frankfurt slowly became the primary MATS bases of the B367 era. By June 1948 the USAF was already operating 561 four engined propliners. As the B367 trickled into service the USAF already operated more than three quarters of all the four engined propliners in existence. Four engined propliners were still a strategic military resource sometimes also operated by airlines which were 'chosen instruments' of their government's foreign policy.
STRATEGIC FOCUS moves to BERLIN.
The communist bloc was not a significant factor in any of this procurement. That only began to change with US involvement in the Berlin Air Lift during 1948 which was instrumental in the decision to merge USN and USAF transport capabilities into MATS. The Berlin Airlift confirmed that the private sector could not respond fast enough, and lacked the releasable airlift capacity needed to impose Pax Americana. Consequently during 1948 a single YC-97A briefly became a bulk coal carrier during the Berlin Air Lift and Germany briefly became the primary focus of US strategic air power.
STRATEGIC CAPABILITY = POOR SHORT HAULER.
Fifty series production C-97As, all modifications of the B345 Washington strategic bomber, retaining R-4360 engines, were delivered slowly from 1948 to 1950, but played no further part in the Berlin Air Lift. The low maximum landing weight of these aircraft made them poor tactical short haulers unless they delivered their payload by parachute through the rear clam shells, and that is a very dangerous way to deliver coal to civilians in an urban environment.
Series production military aircraft all had under nose weather and ground mapping radar. They were equipped to drop palletised cargo, or paratroops, by parachute from the rear clam shell doors. From ship #28 onwards B367s also had an additional cargo side door for conventional airline style cargo loading and unloading, or by internal hoist, also to the upper deck.
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STRATEGIC FOCUS moves to HAWAII (not Korea).
By the summer of 1950 imposition of Pax Americana required the United States to be at war in Korea. This both re-emphasised the strategic importance of the central Pacific island bases, and re-affirmed the need for a huge government owned air transport fleet to provide many elements of the US Army with rapid air mobility, not just delivery of 'airborne' forces into combat.
Just as the Berlin airlift had upgraded Germany from somewhere that must be inconveniently occupied, to somewhere needed for force projection, so the Korean War suddenly upgraded the Japanese island chain in the same way. Japan became the main supply base for combat operations in Korea. Japan and the Pusan peninsular of Korea are less than 100 miles apart.
Tokyo was the supply centre for the Korean War. By August 1950 the USAF had some 4,000 personnel based in Korea, but over 25,000 based in Japan. Strategic assets rarely entered the war zone. West of Tokyo the supply route was operated by US Far East Air Force Combat Cargo Command, mostly using C-119s. Make no mistake, even east of Japan, as far as Hawaii, most of the air supply burden for the Korean War fell on Tactical Air Command (TAC), not MATS.
Consequently the new C-97A did not normally operate west of Hawaii during the Korean War. The long island hopping haul to Tokyo was undertaken almost entirely by the unpressurised Douglas C-54 Skymaster. MATS supplied only 40 C-54s while TAC supplied 75 C-54s to run the air bridge between Hawaii and Japan. The rest of the Pacific air bridge was operated by the RCAF, the Belgian Air Force and a few airlines awarded limited trooping contracts.
The USAF C-54s were later augmented by the also unpressurised and barely faster MATS R-4360 powered Douglas C-124 Globemaster also serving mostly within TAC, not MATS during the Korean War. The C-54 and C-124 were better suited to the existing hot island runways west of Hawaii.
The growing number of C-97As continued to fly backwards and forwards to Hawaii, and increasingly to Germany via Canada and the UK.
TROOP TRANSPORT = CASEVAC.
A single YC-97B 'eighty seat VIP military transport' with circular windows and luxury seating, but no cargo doors at all, was inserted into YC-97A production. After evaluation it became the sole C-97B. The fourteen C-97Cs delivered 1950-51 at the height of the Korean War introduced a re-enforced cargo floor to carry specific artillery tractor and artillery loads, but in practice they were urgently converted to MC-97Cs and used for long haul casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) from February 1951.
The Korean war was soon producing far more casualties in need of evacuation than expected. In every 'modern' war a large fraction of the 'troop transports' are soon required for medically equipped casualty evacuation. The CASEVAC role requires very high frequency, quite limited payload, often very long haul air mobility.
For most of aviation history the role designation 'troop transport' has been a convenient euphemism for casualty evacuation aircraft. Most bomber-transport aircraft in the RAF had always been intended primarily for CASEVAC and as explained in earlier contextual histories CASEVAC had quickly become the primary role of the Regia Aeronautica transport fleet during WW2.
In the US it was soon realised that limited casualty payloads would be compatible with evacuation (Seoul) - Tokyo - Elmendorf - Seattle (through Alaska) if B367s were specially adapted to that purpose as MC-97Cs. Elmendorf - Yokota is just over 3000 miles which is very payload limiting for a B367 making it an unsuitable route for delivery of supply. However medical personnel on posting to Korea could be delivered westbound. The casualty burden was soon such that wounded were also being airlifted from Seoul or Okinawa to Manila for long term treatment in US medical facilities in the Philippines, but the MC-97Cs were not involved. Thus B367s were 'just' visible in Japan and very occasionally in Korea during the Korean War.
Early SAC USE OF THE B367.
A few standard C-97As were delivered to Strategic Air Command to provide nuclear weapon air lift support for B-50 nuclear bomber wings, but these played no role in the Korean War even though SAC B-29s based in Okinawa participated.
Although procured to ensure secure nuclear weapon airlift the few SAC C-97As mostly ferried personnel and other types of supply between SAC bases, sometimes on very short hauls. In practice they seem to have functioned mostly as very expensive VIP transports. From September 1950 SAC also procured three C-97D flying command posts.
The only C-97B 'eighty seat military VIP transport', and six further C-97A conversions also became C-97Ds in 1954. During this conversion they all acquired the 2 x 4200lb under-wing tank capability of the B-50, (whose wing they retained), to extend patrol endurance. The three existing C-97Ds also acquired under wing tank capability during 1954.
The Korean War forced everybody to come to terms with the pitiful combat endurance and radius of turbojet powered aircraft. It was soon obvious that they would need to refuel in flight early and often; and that a huge fleet of propliners configured as air to air refueling tankers would be needed to support turbojet combat operations, and if possible long range ferrying of combat jets, reducing the need to misuse aircraft carriers as aircraft transporters.
KC-97 = TANKER + TRANSPORT.
All later B367 propliners were delivered with USAF style single under tail mounted refueling booms in a detachable pod and were designated KC-97 having strategic tanker capability as well as strategic transport capability.
In the early days some KC-97s may have delivered AVGAS from their transfer tanks, but most AVGAS tanking was undertaken by KB-50 aircraft and while strategic bombers still had piston engines most of their target list was within their unrefueled combat radius.
Most KC-97s consumed AVGAS and delivered AVTUR and the early variants were heavily associated with the deployment of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet from late 1951.
However they were all dual role transport-tankers and were easily converted by deletion of the tanking equipment to become pure strategic transports, and as time went by more and more tanker-transports became pure transports. MATS transferred all their Stratofreighters to US Air National Guard units in 1960 and transfer of KC-97 dual role tanker transports to ANG units like this fully transport converted C-97E proceeded through the 1960s.
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Although some C-97As were temporarily used to develop the production KC-97E none were permanently converted. Production of 50 KC-97E tanker transports immediately followed delivery of the final MC-97C Stratofreighter for the ultra long range CASEVAC role in 1951.
MORE POWER.
159 KC-197Fs followed from April 1952. These and all later variants had more powerful engines and were able to operate at much higher weights. After service as strategic tankers many later became C-97F Stratofreighter strategic transports in the Vietnam War era. These dual role aircraft served initially with SAC to refuel B-47 nuclear bombers, but also provided secure transport for nuclear weapons. Each operationally deployed SAC bomber wing of 45 B-47s needed support from a wing of 20 SAC KC-97s in order to reach their strategic targets.
TAC USE OF THE B367.
Consequently delivery of KC-97Gs to Tactical Air Command (TAC) to refuel light strike aircraft did not begin until May 1953, all earlier deliveries being to SAC. The KC-97G dual role tanker-transport was by far the main production variant of this propliner family. In those 592 propliners the transfer fuel tanks occupied just part of a large cargo floor. When there was no fuel in the fuselage transfer tanks cargo could be loaded conventionally via the side cargo door. With no conversion at all, any of the 592 KC-97Gs dual role tanker-transports could carry 96 troops, or more usually up to 69 stretchers plus medical attendants for high frequency CASEVAC over very long ranges.
The KC-97G was the first B367 with standard B-50D strategic nuclear bomber wing pylons retained at delivery allowing it to mount standard B-50D under-wing tanks, each containing an extra 4200lbs of AVGAS to extend the range at which it could establish an AVTUR towline or transfer casualties. The new generation swept wing turbojet strategic bombers like the Boeing B-47 Stratojet had critically short unrefueled combat radii and their final pre target towline of many towlines on each mission had to be ever nearer to Leningrad and Moscow. Improved avionics allowed the radio operator to be omitted from the flight deck crew of the KC-97G which reduced to four.
HUGE PRODUCTION RUN ENDS.
By 1956 MATS alone had an unduplicated scheduled route mileage of 115,000 miles and operated 1,435 transport aircraft of which 610 were four engined.
B367 (KC-97G) production for SAC and TAC ended as B707 (KC-135A) Stratotanker production began on the same line at Renton in 1956. Boeing would once again be given the opportunity to create an airliner at little or no cost to Boeing shareholders, putting shareholders in other aircraft manufacturers at a huge disadvantage, and this time the political disadvantage would be terminal for Douglas.
CONVERSION BEGINS - ELECTRONIC WARFARE.
An unknown number of KC-97Gs were converted to EC-97G Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) gathering configuration from about 1959 onwards. They seem to have evolved for urgent ELINT operations against Cuba from logical bases and probably flew those sorties for a long time. Others may have been configured for Electronic Warfare (EW jamming) or the same aircraft may eventually have been able to perform both roles. Serving in 'Combat Support Squadrons' until 1976 these aircraft usually lacked the tanker tail boom and pretended to be pure transport conversions, but most soon had a large avionics bulge under CG on the port side.
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In Europe these were most associated with 7405 and 7406 CSS based at Wiesbaden and 7407 CSS briefly based at nearby Frankfurt. Each 'squadron' typically had three EC-97Gs who pretended to be transport flights to and from Berlin Tempelhof along the Berlin corridors. The East German authorities ensured that all air traffic along the corridors was restricted to 10,000 QNH to limit radio and radar horizon.
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The 7405 CSS also operated several RC-97Gs over the years. Some RC-97Gs mounted a 3.25 ton 'Big Bertha' sideways looking camera which may have been developed for use versus Cuba, but later mapped the terrain either side of the Berlin corridors. They flew to Tempelhof every day for many years. The livery changed over time.
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RC-97Gs and EC-97Gs may also have been used for psychological warfare /propaganda broadcasting and /or air to ground and ground to air communications. Most German based EC-97Gs retained their clam shell doors and did not mount under wing tanks, and normally nor did the RC-97G. The 7407 CSS later relocated to Adana in Turkey, close to the Syrian border, but EC-97Gs serving in small CSS units were no doubt employed alongside conventional tanker-transports wherever they were based overseas.
OTHER KC-97G CONVERSIONS.
There had been no intention to fully convert dual role KC-97Gs to C-97G Stratofreighter configuration by removal of the cabin transfer tanks and refueling boom, but 135 were nevertheless fully converted for use by U.S. National Guard units in 1963-64. They were then able to carry up to 134 troops on short hauls or 83 casualties on medium hauls.
Twenty-nine more KC-97Gs underwent a lesser conversion becoming HC-97G ultra long range Search and Rescue (SAR) aircraft. These seem to have been based alongside KC-97s, flying with them to provide rescue co-ordination and control in the towline area, as well as more diverse SAR duties.
Then 27 KC-97Gs had only their transfer tanks removed. Retaining the refueling boom and operator position connected to nothing, they became urgently needed additional Vietnam War era CASEVAC aircraft. Oddly having undergone much less conversion than a C-97G they became C-97Ks and had a more limited casualty load, but in the long haul CASEVAC role that rarely mattered.
AUXILIARY JETS.
From the end of 1964 onwards a total of 81 KC-97Gs acquired J47 jet engines on the wing pylons which had earlier supported the 4200lb fixed under-wing tanks. These KC-97Ls used their auxiliary power briefly while transferring fuel to the new breed of supersonic jet fighters which could not reduce IAS sufficiently to formate on a KC-97G in level flight while attached to the boom.
This was just a further roll out of the conversion which had been applied to the KB-50 from 1957 onwards. Remember B-50 and C-97 wing structure was identical. Conversions were still being made through the 1970s. MSFS lacks the capability to simulate aircraft with both piston and jet engines, but use of the auxiliary jet engines was anyway very brief within any KC-97L sortie. The idea was to transfer as much of the AVTUR as possible to supersonic strike aircraft, not to consume it!
The last KC-97L was not retired from US National Guard service until at least 1977. All KC-97Ls eventually acquired satellite communication bulges above CG.
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COLD WAR STRATEGIC FOCUS moves to EUROPE and MEDITERRANEAN long term.
After the Korean War ended in an ugly draw there followed a decade of growing 'Cold War' which caused the NATO front line in Europe to demand more and more air supply. In particular the ever growing Soviet hunter killer submarine fleet operating in the North Atlantic made air supply across the North Atlantic critical to both rapid re-enforcement and any subsequent re-supply of the NATO front line. For the next decade the primary focus of MATS activity shifted to Europe with fast long haul B367 strategic air supply flowing through Gander/Goose and Prestwick to the NATO European Theatre, else Lajes to the NATO Mediterranean Theatre which included four SAC strategic nuclear bases in French Morocco established in return for covert assistance in French Indo China.
STRATEGIC FOCUS moves to VIETNAM.
The rushed decolonisation demanded of Holland, France, and Britain soon caused great instability right across South East Asia and the focus of US strategic air supply would soon be Vietnam. This would again increase the strategic importance of US Pacific island bases. In accordance with the edicts of Pax Americana they were not decolonised. They were increasingly militarised.
USAF units operating C-119 tactical transport aircraft in false French Air Force markings were deployed to Vietnam from November 1953 while Vietnam was still a French colony. By May 1954 the US taxpayer was funding 80% of all air logistics in French Indo China. In May 1955 the USAF replaced the French Air Force as advisors and instructors to the fledgling Vietnamese Air Force within the newly decolonised Vietnam. The last French forces departed in July 1956.
The first US air power acknowledged as such, in the form of 15 TRS flying RF-101 Voodoos arrived at Tahn Son Nut in October 1961. They were followed in December 1961 by two companies of US Army transport helicopters flying ARVN units on combat counter insurgency missions. A few days later the C-123s of 346 TCS arrived to provide in country logistic support alongside the UC-123Cs of 364 TCS who began the defoliation of Vietnam using 'Agent Orange'. By December 1962 there were over 10,000 US armed forces 'advisors' and 'instructors' based in Vietnam.
B367 BASED IN VIETNAM.
The first EC-97G arrived to begin ELINT, and perhaps EW sorties, from Tahn Son Nut in February 1963. It replaced the EC-54H which had been providing ELINT/EW since April 1962 and the sole EC-97G present at any one time probably flew sorties quite widely over South East Asia until relieved by the USAF RC-130As operating out of Don Muang (Bangkok) in July 1964. USN C-121K and EC-121M Super Constellation ELINT / EW / AEW / AWACS sorties from Da Nang did not begin until the war became 'official' a few days later.
VIETNAM AIR SUPPLY LOGISTICS.
In theory the 'Vietnam War' did not begin until a suitable 'cause celebre' was created early in August 1964. By December 1964 the US Army alone had 510 aircraft based in Vietnam and was already the largest aircraft user in South East Asia. There were now 23,000 US armed forces personnel based in Vietnam and the need for air supply and CASEVAC was growing fast. More and more B367 tanker transports serving with SAC and TAC were converted to pure transport configuration and after transfer to ANG units a few were soon hauling all the way to Vietnam and / or evacuating casualties across the Pacific.
However most of the trans Pacific workload arising from the Vietnam War fell on newer, faster, transport aircraft. To a significant extent the B367s of the ANG relieved those faster aircraft of their duties everywhere else and away from the combat zone. B367s seem to have been almost as rare sight in Vietnam as they had been in Korea. B367s worked harder everywhere during the Vietnam War, and the focus shifted from tanking to logistics, but it seems that the B367 was not particularly 'involved' within South East Asia. It remained far more visible in Hawaii, the CONUS and on the NATO front line in Europe.
It is the nature of strategic assets that they are always in the background while tactical assets are highly visible on the front line. By employing their B367s for up to 25 years, and in several different roles, usually far from combat zones and with low losses, the US taxpayer achieved value for money from their billion dollar propliner purchase. Although much more capable their replacements would also be much more expensive.
THE END OF MATS - FIRST US NAVY B367.
The Vietnam War spawned the de-merger of USAF and USN strategic transport assets in 1966 and so it came to pass that late in life at least one C-97K Stratofreighter served with the USN, probably based at and providing logistics support to NAWS China Lake.
B367 EXPORTED TO ISRAEL.
During 1965 one KC-97F, six KC-97Gs and two EC-97Gs were supplied second hand to the Israeli Air Force to promote and enable extended range strike missions with the newly supplied Douglas A-4 Skyhawks, and to greatly upgrade accompanying Israeli airborne electronic warfare capability. The IAF quickly converted the tankers to have the superior British (Cobham) multiple flexible hose and receiver system, also used by the USN and USMC, which requires no boom operator and reduces time on towline by feeding multiple chicks. The British style hose refueling pods were mounted where the USAF under-wing tanks had been.
The USAF style boom was retained, or later added back, for use with later types of aircraft supplied to Israel. In the photo linked below note that the tanker is diving nose down sustaining Mach max operation (making a toboggan run) and is close to zero AoA while the F-4 has to co-descend nose up with high AoA to sustain the same limited IAS at high level, in order to formate and refuel at B367 Mach (max operating). The survivors served with the IAF until 1978.
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This was the problem that the KC-97L conversion avoided. With both J47s burning the KC-97L could sustain Mmo in level flight at high level thus avoiding the need to toboggan downhill in the towline.
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Since the A-4 Skyhawk could not use a boom to refuel, IAF tankers could not have auxiliary jets, and could only be KC-97Fs or KC-97Gs without under wing tanks. The Israeli F-4s were dual capability which allowed KC-130s to replace their KC-97s eventually.
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In 1960s Israel the B367 and B377 were known as the Boeing Anak (Giant).
STRATEGIC FOCUS switches to AFRICA - USAF B367s LEASED TO 'CIVILIANS'.
More hasty decolonisation in Africa soon caused widespread political instability there too. As the situation in South East Asia progressed from bad to worse more and more US government owned aircraft avoided proclaiming their ownership and were 'leased' to third parties for operation in war zones.
During the late 1960s B367 Stratofreighters leased from the US ANG, flown by 'volunteer' US aircrew, started to turn up in African war zones. Some may have been legitimate charitable relief flights, and others probably not. In any event delivery of food and medical aid to one armed rebel faction was not regarded as a neutral act by the recognised government.
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Joint Church Aid leased five ANG B367s and based them in Sao Tome (FPST).
The US ANG also leased B367s to the Israeli owned, but Swiss based airline Balair. During the 'Biafra War' five 'Balair' B367s with Swiss registrations, based at Cotonou (DBBB), had Balair titles on one side and Red Cross titles on the other. Maintained by fifty Israelis employed by Israeli Aircraft Industries, but flown by volunteer US aircrew, they delivered 16 tons of food and medical aid to the Biafran rebels via the airstrip at Uli on each flight, landing only at night of course. Uli is not available in MSFS so the airfield at Oshogbo (DNOS) should be substituted. Within MSFS we must locate the airfield solely by following the river from the coast at night. This made it relatively easy for the government to decide where to site its Flak batteries.
FIRST B367 SHOT DOWN IN COMBAT.
During 1969 it seems that at least one B367 was shot down by Nigerian government Flak while en route to Uli becoming the first B367 lost in combat. Another belly landed at Uli becoming the second. Many were hit by Flak en route to Uli. Returning from Uli they did not need to follow the river. This relief operation to the rebels was supervised by Colonel Dewy of the US ANG throughout who supplied all spare parts required.
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Balair also maintained the five C-97s in 'Joint Church Aid' titles wearing US civil registrations at Sao Tome, whose spares were also supplied by the US ANG. During 1970 the Nigerian government eventually managed to regain control and the Biafran rebellion was crushed.
THIRD B367 COMBAT LOSS.
The IAF EC-97Gs could carry under wing tanks for extended time on station at FL300. In the early 1970s one of the two IAF EC-97Gs was shot down during an EW patrol when it was hit by an SA-2 missile. During the period of 'peace' between the end of the 'Six Day War' in 1967 and the start of the 'Yom Kippur' war in 1973 at least 36 IAF fixed wing aircraft were shot down by Egypt and Syria, while 113 Egyptian and Syrian fixed wing aircraft were shot down by Israel. Pax Americana was taking on a new and dangerous dimension even as US ground forces were being defeated in South East Asia.
B367 EXPORTED TO SPAIN.
During 1973 three ex USAF KC-97Ls were sold to the Spanish Air Force and were based at Torrejon to support F-4 Phantom II long range training sorties and ferry flights. Note retained NATO satellite communication equipment above fuselage.
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These were most likely the last B367s in military service anywhere.
FIRST CIVILIAN B367 OWNERS.
USAF B367s were eventually auctioned off, mostly for scrap, but a few were brought into compliance with FAA certification requirements, and genuinely registered with the FAA. At least one became a water (forest fire) bomber operated by Hawkins and Powers on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management in Alaska.
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Agro Air of the Dominican Republic used at least two demilitarised B367s to fly cargo into Santo Domingo from Miami. Originally KC-97Ls the jet engines and all the USAF avionics were removed before sale along with the under wing tank capability. These demilitarised ex tanker Stratofreighters also lost their more powerful engines and therefore shared the flight dynamics of the original C-97A as present within MSFS.
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A single Mexican C-97G XA-PII also flew on until about 1991 with Aero Pacifico. Nominally based in the Baja province of Mexico it had to return to Tucson each time it needed significant maintenance.
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B377 STRATOCRUISER - AIR MAIL CONTRACTS = OVERT SUBSIDY
Before we examine the history of the B377 Stratocruiser we must be aware that after WW2 major US airlines were granted international route licenses, and more importantly very lucrative Foreign Air Mail (FAM) contracts, as part of an integrated plan to use their strategic airlift capacity in a supplementary role in pursuit of the wide ranging economic goals of the New World Order. Few US airlines were willing to establish passenger services overseas that did not deliver a lucrative government FAM contract, as well as the possibility of carrying military or naval personnel with great frequency to places of strategic importance to Pax Americana.
In due course the major airlines would be augmented by 'supplemental carriers' who had no entitlement to air mail subsidies, but the focus of their supplementary operations was also mostly along the same strategic routes linking US military and naval bases which generated little private sector demand for air travel.
COVERT SUBSIDIES.
Way back in November 1945, almost four years after the US taxpayer became committed to funding research, development, prototyping and testing of both the R-4360 and the B367, and with that funding already in place, Boeing persuaded PAA to order a simpler civilian spin off from the C-97B 'eighty seat VIP military transport', to be known as the B377 Stratocruiser. The spin doctors of the US government, Boeing and PAA were soon busy persuading the media to broadcast the idea that the new Boeing strategic transport was being sponsored and developed at the cost of Boeing and PAA shareholders, but of course it wasn't.
It suited PAA and the few other airlines who ordered the B377 in 1945-46 to pretend that they had the capital resources to fund such a program and that they would take delivery of B377s in 1947-48, generously allowing the USAF to procure cheap spin offs from their private sector investment, but of course all the contractual guarantees ensured the opposite. The airlines had every intention of waiting until the US taxpayer had paid most of the development costs, and had paid to fix all the bugs, before production of their simpler airliner spin offs began several years later than their post order publicity claimed. PAA and Boeing shareholders did fund a single B377 prototype, but it was needed to procure civil type certification rather than for expensive structural and propulsion development testing.
EIGHTY SEAT VIP LONG HAUL MILITARY TRANSPORT ?
Which is no doubt why US taxpayers found themselves funding the research, development, prototyping and testing costs of a single suspiciously short lived C-97B 'eighty seat military VIP transport'. Problems arising from the elimination of the clam shell doors, installation of multiple round windows, and installation of a luxury interior, were explored and rectified in that single C-97B at US taxpayer expense, and then copied in the first B377-026 for PAA. The single C-97B was soon converted to become a quite different and more useful C-97D SAC airborne command post.
B377s DESIGNATED WITHIN THE B367 SEQUENCE.
Before construction of the first series production B377 for PAA began B367 construction was already at modification state 25 and so the PAA aircraft were all B377-026 Stratocruisers numbered in the military B367 modification number series, as were all subsequent civilian B377 Stratocruisers tacked onto the already guaranteed US government order.
While selling B367s incorporating expensive pressure hull clam shell doors to the USAF for less than 1.25 million USD each, Boeing demanded 1.27 to 1.65 million USD for each simpler to manufacture B377. Consequently like the earlier ill fated minor conversion of the B-17 Flying Fortress into the B307 Stratoliner, despite most development costs again being borne by the US taxpayer, the B377 Stratocruiser would again be too complex and too expensive to attract many private sector customers, and those who purchased it once again struggled to make profits with it.
BRITISH AIRCRAFT STUCTURAL FAILURES.
Meanwhile a series of unexplained losses involving Avro Tudor's of BSAA, (and other fatal crashes), caused that airline to have its route licenses revoked and taken over by BOAC. With the Tudor unavailable BOAC urgently needed an immediately available trans Atlantic replacement. Funded by the Swedish taxpayer the SAS precursor airline Svensk Interkontinental Lufttrafik Aktiebolag (SILA) had ordered four B377s for early delivery with the intention of using them on trans Atlantic services. Offered an instant profit SILA sensibly decided to sell their four B377s to BOAC while they were still on the production line at Renton.
B377 FAILS to SELL and B377 SAFETY CONCERNS.
Consequently only PAA, AOA, UAL and BOAC ever took delivery of Stratocruisers directly from Boeing, and American Overseas Airlines were almost immediately taken over by PAA. The B377 had a flight deck crew of five (P1 + P2 + NAV + FE + RO), and typically four or five more cabin crew on the two passenger decks. Only fifty-six Stratocruisers were built for private sector consumption, including the prototype used for civil certification. Deliveries to airlines were delayed until 1949-50, four years after PAA, AOA, NWA and UAL had trumpeted their orders.
Ten of the fifty-five production aircraft (18%) would suffer total loss crashes over the next ten years, but three of those caused no fatalities. However two others had pressurised cabin doors open in flight causing fatalities, and so nine of the commercial fleet (16%) were involved in fatal accidents which killed 140 passengers and crew within ten years. The surrounding publicity did nothing to improve ticket sales.
PAA INAUGURAL ROUTES.
PAA inaugurated both San Francisco - Honolulu and New York - Bermuda services with the B377 in April 1949. Then New York - Gander - Shannon - London services followed in July 1949 as more B377-026s were slowly delivered. Both Los Angeles - Honolulu and Seattle - Portland - Honolulu were soon added. After the Korean War began PAA services soon expanded along the Pacific island chains to Japan, and further into Asia via the Philippines, ( see below).
AOA ROUTES and QUICK DEMISE.
The eight B377s for American Overseas Airlines were B377-029s and AOA inaugurated their competing New York - Boston - (Gander) - Shannon - London service in direct competition with PAA in August 1949. These flights from Boston only stopped at Gander eastbound if less than maximum fuel was loaded allowing AOA to claim direct service from the US to the UK, however infrequent in practice, to the discomfort of PAA. From October 1949 the AOA route extended to Frankfurt.
From January 1950 AOA also flew New York - Boston - (Goose) - Prestwick - Amsterdam. From a PAA perspective AOA therefore had to be removed from competition, and quickly. After bitter opposition an increased PAA bid of 18.3 million USD for AOA was finally approved by the US government in September 1950 and the PAA B377 fleet swelled to 29.
BOAC INUAGURAL ROUTES.
Purchase of the four B377-028s ordered by SILA allowed BOAC B377s to compete against PAA and AOA B377s during 1949 flying New York - Gander - London or New York - Goose - Prestwick - London (depending on both winds and payload). BOAC had no rights to serve Shannon and so tracked further north more often and used Goose in combination with Prestwick more often. Similarly PAA Super Stratocruisers (see later) from London and Paris timetabled non stop to NY often tracked over Glasgow and Goose. Although not timetabled to land at either Prestwick or Goose, they often flight planned to do so.
NOT LUXURIOUS ENOUGH.
The New World Order was being rolled out, but meanwhile this was still the swan song of the Imperial age, in which old inherited money dominated purchasing power. This was still the heyday of the luxury ocean liner. Hardly any civilians had ever crossed oceans by air. Those who could afford to occupy the upper decks of the many luxury ocean liners had copious time to waste in great luxury. They were in no hurry to arrive.
The B377 belongs to the last gasp of aviation history when the only airlines granted licences to carry passengers across the North Atlantic or Pacific existed to serve only the under employed super rich. The airlines which were the 'chosen instruments' of national governments were propaganda tools of those governments. The imperial powers who still owned the airspace over their imperial colonies controlled who had access to each international air route. The land masses of the North Atlantic still belonged to the British Empire, the Danish Empire and the Portuguese Empire; and that did not please the United States at all.
All other trans Oceanic routes had tiny levels of civilian passenger demand compared to the shipping lanes between North America and Europe. The few airlines allowed to compete with the still politically powerful shipping lines were subsidised to provide services to the same super rich few, who therefore had to be lured away from ocean liner 'luxury' with smoking lounges, 'opulent' cloakrooms, and 'spacious' cocktail bars, even in aeroplanes. B377 passengers could even book a personal and private suite or 'stateroom' with its own lavatory and personal servant so that they did not need to mix with the not quite so wealthy.
The trouble was, having crossed an ocean by air once, so they could boast that they had, most never bothered again. Either it wasn't luxurious enough, or entertaining enough, or the luxury and entertainment was too short lived. In truth the airlines could never compete with the great ocean liners in terms of luxury and entertainment for the under employed super wealthy.
If you can find a picture of the 'luxurious' lounge area provided by PAA ask yourself if you would hire it to host a party for thirteen very wealthy guests. Just because airline publicity material makes wild claims, eagerly plagiarised by journalists and 'historians' too lazy to do anything other than regurgitate publicity hand outs as 'news' or 'history' does not mean that we have to take corporate publicity claims at face value. Make no mistake many B377 passengers were disappointed by the reality.
NOT FAST ENOUGH.
This was the 'wired age'. Chief executives did business by telephone, and telex, not by air travel, and 'celebrities' were not yet expected to promote their latest film on two continents in two days. Trans oceanic travel was an experience only those with inherited fortunes could afford. This was the era when propliner captains refused approach clearance and continued in the holding pattern for another forty minutes to allow the silver service breakfast to be served uninterrupted. Super wealthy passengers were not woken for landing, or even after landing. They were allowed to sleep on in their heavy luxury bunks with the air conditioning running for hours after arrival at destination. The super rich purchased a luxurious silver service travel experience, and luxury sleeping accommodation, not rapid mass transit.
But times were changing. As the New World Order was rolled out old money was giving way to new money. Once the monopolistic political power of the Hollywood film moguls was defeated and Americans were allowed to have television, just like Europeans, the new cult of celebrity had a new powerful vehicle which required constant promotion by 'live' appearances and suddenly so did the advertising of corporate brand names within a new world order in which US corporations were no longer excluded by imperial protectionism.
As planned the new world economy was globalising. The new 'free trade agreements' allowed corporations to become 'multi national'. The CEO rarely strayed from the luxury of his national corporate HQ, but more and more 'sales executives' were dispatched to more and more far away places to sell, sell, sell through personal contacts. Those corporations now wanted to use airlines to transport sales forces, to sell a business proposition, by personal contact and live appearance, but those corporations did not need the travel involved to be luxurious for those they employed to undertake it. Even the 'sales executives' and the 'celebrities' wanted to be selling their proposition at destination, not trapped in transit for any longer than necessary. Suddenly 'time was money'. Increasingly this wasn't just true of trans oceanic travel.
PAA RESPONSE.
Very few passengers could afford trans oceanic travel by B377. Accordingly from 1st May 1952 PAA offered cramped 82 seat DC6B 'Rainbow Class' services via Gander and Prestwick or Shannon, to London and beyond, at much lower fares than the B377 'President Class', making 'non stop' B377 losses worse for both themselves and BOAC. In 1953 the tariff was $711 President Class vs $495 Rainbow Class (NY-London one way). A berth was $35 extra on top of the first class ticket.
BOAC RESPONSE.
BOAC procured second hand L749 Constellations to perform the same tourist class role. At this time all international airlines operated as a cartel via IATA which imposed the same fares on all airlines. The new tourist class fares across the Atlantic were 'cheap' only by comparison to the identical 'first class' only fares on the B377 services.
Remember the North Atlantic routes were not BOAC's priority routes. BOAC inaugurated Comet 1 jet services through British East Africa to South Africa on 2nd May 1952.
TWA RESPONSE.
TWA moved in the opposite direction. In 1956 they introduced the L1049G Super Constellation which delivered longer range than the standard B377 so that they could offer New York direct to London or Paris (with the tailwind above the Gulf Stream). This together with cheaper TWA L749 and other airline's DC6B services very badly damaged PAA and BOAC B377 revenues.
Continued in next post...