by Ed Palm
If you have been keeping up with the war news, you know that our first major setback was the crash of a KC-135 jet tanker, killing all of the six crew members aboard. Not to make light of that tragedy, but the airplane itself—the KC-135—has long held a special place in my heart. It was on a KC-135 that I once chanced to have an impromptu flying lesson.
In July of 1966, my absentee Air Force officer father invited me up to his duty station at the time—the K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He wanted me to get to know him better and to make his case for why he and my mother split up when I was two. (The whole time I was growing up I saw him maybe three times.) He also wanted me to meet my half-siblings and his second wife. I was a snuffy at the time, a mere Marine lance corporal. He was a lieutenant colonel and a pilot in the Strategic Air Command. Pardon the pun, but the high point of the trip was when my father got permission to take me along on a training flight in a KC-135A jet tanker.
I was in a jump seat in the cockpit—enjoying the view of the setting sun on Lake Superior—when the co-pilot summoned me forward, had me put on a set of headphones, and motioned for me to sit in his seat. He actually had me take the yoke and proceeded to coach me in how to go in to and out of 15-degree banks without losing or gaining altitude. He told me I did well at it, and I chose to believe him.
Again, that was in 1966—60 years ago—and I was astounded to learn the KC-135 is still the standard jet tanker of the Air Force, flown by regular, reserve, and Air National Guard units alike. I’ve read that most of the B-52 jet bombers now in service are older than the pilots flying them. I have to wonder if the same is true of the KC-135s still being flown.
During that heady flying lesson, I noticed an emblem in the middle of the yoke designating the plane as a Boeing 707. My father later told me the KC-135 is indeed a modified 707, and this plane reportedly went out of production in 1991. Today’s KC-135 air frames can’t be as old as that, can they?
What I have since learned about the recent crash also gives me pause. At first, we were told the plane was on a “combat mission,” but that the crash was “not a result of hostile or friendly fire.” Later, we were told a second KC-135 was involved in the same mission and that it landed safely. And only recently has the Air Force revealed that the second plane was involved in an “incident” with the downed KC-135. Is “incident” Air-Force-speak for a collision?
The website AeroTime has since published a photo of that second KC-135, which landed safely at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport. The plane’s horizontal stabilizer is damaged, and the letters “AFRC” are visible on it—signifying the plane was assigned to the Air Force Reserve Component. There is also a Beale Air Force Base decal on the stabilizer. Beale is home to the 940th Aerial Refueling Wing—a component of the Air Force Reserve. And three of the dead did belong to the 121st Aerial Refueling Wing—an Ohio Air National Guard Unit. They were on the KC-135 that crashed. It also belonged to the Air Force Reserve’s 940th Aerial Refueling Wing. They must have been temporarily assigned to the 940th.
All this makes me wonder about the wisdom and the efficacy of our total-force dependence on reserve units and personnel. Granted, I don’t know—we may never know—what caused this crash. But at the risk of ruffling some feathers, I’ll pose this question: Are the training and maintenance standards of Air Force Reserve Component units every bit as sound as that of regular Air Force units? I have to believe reserve and National Guard pilots, in general, do not get as much flying time as regular Air Force pilots.
You Air Force pilots, past and present, out there: Correct me if I’m wrong here. I owe it to my father to keep an open mind about this.
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A former enlisted Marine and a Vietnam veteran, Ed Palm retired from the Marine Corps as a major and went on to an academic career. He lives in Forest, Virginia, and can be contacted at majorpalm@gmail.com.