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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0359.PDF
FLIGHT, 18 March 1960 359 Missiles and Spaceflight.. . PEACEFUL DELIVERY Deployment of intermediate-range ballisticmissiles with the Royal Air Force was com- pleted last week with the delivery of the60th and last Thor from the USA to Britain. This article describes the flight, bythe Military Air Transport Service of the US Air Force, to collect and deliver themissile. The background to the entire Thor airlift programme will be the subjectof a further article next week. Yi' OUR routing is direct to Santa Monica via St Louis, Okla-homa and the scenic route. .. ." The crewcut, shirtsleevedbriefing officer in the Operations Center at Dover Air ForceBase, Delaware, flicked through his file of crew notices quietly, almost casually. "Without the permission of MATS you will notparticipate in public aerial demonstrations ..." ("No barrel rolls?" asked the aircraft commander, thinking of his massive Globe-master) " .. Coffee in addition to that for meal requirements will cost 35 cents a gallon ..." The aircraft commander, Lt Clyde Turner, took the floor andcontinued to outline our flight-plan. It would be a 12hr 18min flight, and we were due to take off at 8 a.m.—in \\ hours' time.Weather was generally good, but there was the possibility of moderate icing between St Louis and North Texas. "You mayhave heard," the lieutenant added, "that the bird we are picking up is the final Thor for the RAF. There is a possibility that Douglas BY KENNETH OWEN Illustrated with "Flight" photographs may make a production of this, and on the way back we may havetwo colonels and a general aboard." Thus forewarned of the twin dangers to come of publicity andtop brass, crew-members adjourned to eat breakfast and attend to flight formalities. The crew comprised, in addition to the aircraftcommander, two pilots (Capt W. A. Yonker and Lt R. S. Edwards), two engineers (T Sgts H. L. Decker and M. W. Hiltunen) and aloadmaster (A/2c T. S. Magoon), and they belonged to the 40th Squadron of the 1607th Air Transport Wing, a unit of MATSEastern Transport Air Force (EASTAF). The base at Dover, claimed to be the world's largest air cargo centre, had been closedfor flying for three days by the fierce blizzards that had already refrigerated the East Coast (and Flight's representative), but wasexpected to be open for take-offs again this morning. Even so, the local weather was still pretty bad. Airman Second Class Thomas S.Magoon confided that his Triumph T.R.3 was still buried und^r a sizeable snowdrift. Two predictions made at the briefing did not come true. Because of an oil-pressure fault in one of the Pratt & Whitney R-4360engines our take-off was delayed until just after noon; and this delay, in conjunction with a restriction against night landings atSanta Monica, meant that we would land at Norton AFB, San Bernardino, California, and fly on to Santa Monica and anyDouglas "production" the following day. My first impression of our C-124C as we drove out to it was of abig, ugly, ill-proportioned monster with a ridiculous glace cherry added for a nose. After we had climbed through the crew-entrancehatch and into the assembly-hall of an interior, however, it was obvious that this was no monster, but an effective and hardworkingcargo vehicle. Numerous tie-down rings were let into the floor, which also incorporated hatches to two under-floor compartmentsand the lift platform, which is used as an additional loading facility. The nose ramps were raised vertically and folded, flanking thecentral ladder which led up to the crew section. Along the sides were canvas, tubular-framed troop benches (mostly folded againstthe walls), while at the rear of the cabin was a triple bunk for which, on the outward trip at least, we were to be most grateful. On the floor at the rear were the cable and pulleys used to loadand unload the Thor. As pan of the pre-flight checklist procedure, one of the engineer sergeants disappeared into the forward under-flqor compartment and, much to my surprise, re-entered five minutes later through a side hatch from the wing. The explanationlay in a walk-way, or crawl-way, inside the wing which is used to provide servicing access to the engine nacelles—and, once at theouter engine, the quickest way back is up through a hatch in the nacelle and out on to the wing. On the ceiling were two twin-hook travelling-crane units, run-ning along longitudinal rails; and folded against the upper fuselage sides in the rear part of the aircraft were the floor-sections which,when lowered and locked, help to convert the Globemaster into a two-deck passenger aircraft able to carry 200 troops. The crew compartment is a thoroughly workmanlike affair.Looking down through the cockpit windscreen, I first wondered whether there ought not to be a control tower under me ratherthan an aeroplane, but one soon gets used to the altitude. Behind the co-pilot's seat, along the right-hand side of the compartment, isthe engineer's position, opposite which on the left is the navigator's The 60th Thor delivery flight to the RAF began at Santa Monica on March 8 with the roll-out of the missile from the Douglas plant (below) and its loading aboard another Douglas product, a C-124C Globemaster of the 40th Air Transport Squadron (heading photograph). Left, the author talks with crew-members Yonker, Hiltunen, Decker, Turner, Magoon and Edwards before the flight
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