In the mid-60s I was posted to Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, home of Headquarters Strategic Air Command. I was not in the HQ, however, but in the Operations Squadron of Offutt’s Air Base Wing. The ABW ran all the base’s goods and services, we in the ops squadron provided support for all the aviators assigned to the HQ. My primary duty was as instructor pilot and flight examiner in the T-29 (navigator trainer based on the Convair 240), and ditto in the C-97 (military version of the Boeing B377 Stratocruiser). The Air Force never encouraged multiple currency, but when you only have some 20 pilots doing the instructor and examiner duties for well over a thousand HQ denizens, you have to double up — or more. I would eventually add two more birds to my list, but that isn’t germane to this tale.
Every weekday we would launch a C-97 called the East Coast Courier, destination Andrews AFB, near Washington, D.C., via an intermediate stop at Patterson Field at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, outbound and inbound. The primary purpose of the mission was moving large loads of classified material, usually tied down in the lower aft compartment. On the upper deck were some 50 passenger seats, and it was a rare day they weren’t filled with temporary duty travelers, military people hitchhiking on leave, occasionally even a congressman who was serious about fiscal responsibility.
