My memories of working at Carswell are such a swirl of events that I don’t know where to begin.  Perhaps the best place to begin is with that first day of being truly assigned to the 7th Bomb Wing, Field Maintenance Squadron, Accessories Branch, Instrument Shop.

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Pike borrowed a truck and we drove around the massive hangar toward the B-52 parking area.  Having stopped once for another security badge check at the end of the parking apron, we drove out to an aircraft where no maintenance was being performed and parked.
As we had approached the aircraft, it looked larger than life, and a parking apron of several of them was truly a sight to behold.  As we got out of the truck and walked up to the aircraft there was a sense of being overwhelmed — the aircraft was huge! 

The wings were thick, long (185 feet tip to tip), and deep and each had a pod on which were mounted two Pratt and Whitney J57-P-43W (“W” for water injection) jet engines a total of eight engines are aircraft.  Not far from the wing tip on each wing was mounted one “tip tank” that held 18,000 pounds of fuel, or roughly 2,200 gallons of JP-4 jet fuel. 

The fuselage was long (156 feet), wide, and high.  At the tail, the vertical stabilizer was very high and massive, and this being an F-model aircraft, it was the last of the tall tail B-52s.  The later “G” and “H” models would have shorter vertical stabilizers that ended in a longer flat top, often referred to as stubby tails.

Near the rear of the fuselage was a hatch on the right side, reachable only from a very tall maintenance stand, and at the rear end of the fuselage was a turret containing four .50-cal. M-3 machine guns, operated by the tail gunner who had the worst seat in the house.  He was on the end of the whipsaw, all alone there in the far end of the tail, with a “we’ve been there” view through his windows. 

It was apparently a lonely existence, for I would discover later that packed between the aircraft metal and the insulating padding were many pocket novels.  I can only imagine how the ride was while airborne, particularly in turbulence, because I rode back there during certain phase inspections that required al 8 engines to be running on the ground as we checked pressurization and the associated instruments and warning systems.  The turbulence caused by the running engines made it a most uncomfortable place to be and I grew to respect the fortitude of anyone flying as a tail gunner.  The “F” model was also the last to have tail gunners back there.  In the “G” and “H” models the tail gunner would see his targets and control his gun turret remotely from his seat up front with the rest of the crew.

I found it difficult to believe that my age I was expected or more accurately, allowed, to work on such a thing.

After we walked around the aircraft for a while, Pike pointing out various features as we went, as we were near the forward end of the fuselage, yet several yards back, Pike ducked underneath and opened a hatch which when dropped down revealed a set of steps built into it.  He motioned for me to climb up and wait for him.

As I put my foot on the first step I expected it to be weak or to wobble because after all it was “only” on a hatch that was hinged on only one edge, but that wasn’t the case.  As my head entered the interior of the aircraft and I finally stood on the floor at the top of the steps I felt as if I were in a World War II movie.  This was the look and feel of the confined spaces inside an aircraft with very little lighting, everything in green, black, or gray, and everything of cold, hard metal.

This was the lower compartment and had two crewmember seats which for me would prove to be uncomfortable for the two years that I would work on these aircraft.  The discomfort had nothing to do with the cushioning, rather, it had to do with the fact that these two seats ejected downward and when I was sitting in them I was only a few feet from the concrete.  Though upward ejection of the pilot and copilot seats while performing maintenance on the ground would have been just as deadly, those downward ejection seats were my least favorite.  These seats were those of the navigator and radar navigator-bombardier, the latter being more commonly thought of but not referred to as simply the bombardier or radar-nav.

Apart from the radar scopes the massive panels in front of those two seats were all black and contained scores of control knobs, readouts, and indicators.  Thankfully my responsibilities for maintenance of indicators on those panels were very limited, as was my time therefore in those two seats.

To the right of those two positions was a ladder that led to a deck higher up.  We climbed up that ladder and learned that there was no more vertical space up there than there had been down below.  In fact, there was a lot less and we had to crouch to move around.  When I sat on the floor I had to bend my back and neck to fit.  This area had somewhat the same feel as the area below in that it was of the same color combinations, but it was an area of contrasts.

To the left rear of the deck was another set of panels and another seat, upward ejection, that of the electronic countermeasures operator, and that space was small and dark.

Moving in a crouch forward, where the floor dropped several inches, providing more headroom but still requiring a crouch, there was a center support of two vertical rails from which a seat dropped down, nothing more than a hard green piece of metal.  In front of that was the center console for the pilot and copilot whose seats were on either side.

The black center console full of switches and knobs was wide, and the black instrument panel that spanned from the far left of the pilot, across the width of the center console, and to the far right of the copilot was massive.  Above the instrument panel one could see through the windshield of multiple panels, and above the center windshield panel was another panel of a single row of instruments.

As an example of how large the instrument panel of the B-52 really was, remembering that the aircraft had eight engines, the center instrument panel alone contained 32 engine instruments in an array 4 high and 8 wide.  There simply wasn’t room for more on the center panel, so the 8 engine oil pressure gauges were located along with the magnetic compass, commonly referred to as the whiskey compass, on the instrument panel above the center windshield.  That single row instrument panel was commonly referred to as the eyebrow panel.

As Pike sat in the pilot’s seat on the left and I in the copilot seat on the right, I remember him trying point out the instruments on the panel, most of which I had learned about at Chanute, and asking me at some point if I was “getting any of this.”  I have no idea how I replied, but I know his question was one of some humor and that he had been through this before, because I was in a state of total amazement and bewilderment. 

No technical training could possibly prepare one for the sight and the feel of sitting in a B-52 cockpit for the very first time, and at that, less than a year out of high school.  I don’t know why, but it never dawned on me until then that the military was not made up of a bunch of middle aged adults, as depicted in the movies.  The fact was, there were thousands just like me.

After some time there in the cockpit we climbed back down and out of the aircraft and Pike showed me how to secure the hatch.  I think that was just his way of getting me to help him swing the hatch up and into place because that hatch was not exactly a lightweight.  My hands, head, and shoulder were already there, so it made no sense to pass up a training opportunity. 

That was my very first lesson on the huge bomber I would learn to love and hate in a very short time.  The love part must have won out because I sit here now pleasantly remembering these things as I look at a 4 foot wide framed lithograph of a B-52 only a few feet away from me on the wall.  I got that print when I was at Carswell, and it has survived all these years.  It is the only aircraft displayed anywhere in my home despite my having worked on many different types.

From the B-52 we moved to another parking ramp where the KC-135A tankers were parked.  Made by Boeing, as was the B-52, the KC-135 was in the military version of the civilian Boeing 707, a four engine jet aircraft capable of carrying cargo, and passengers.  The upper deck on the civilian version was used for passengers and below for baggage and cargo.  On the military version the upper deck was used for cargo and passengers and below for fuel.  

The KC-135 was the first jet air refueling tanker, replacing the venerable KC-97, a four engine propeller aircraft, and was a reliable aircraft.  An enviable assignment was to go on temporary duty with a handful of KC-135s.  One could expect few maintenance problems and therefore little work.

At the tail end of the aircraft, tucked neatly up against the underside of the fuselage, was a flyable refueling boom.  When in use, the boom would be angled downward toward the receiving aircraft and would be “flown” via two airfoils located near the end of its base section.  To lengthen the boom more sections telescoped outward and the final section had a coupling at the end which would connect into a coupling on the receiving aircraft.

Because the KC-135 stood much farther above the ground than did the B-52, entry was quite different and the climb a lot higher.  Once the hatch was opened and the ladder extended, reaching the top of the ladder entered, by pushing up a floor grate, into a spacious, at least by B-52 standards, cockpit. 

After lowering the floor grate for safety, I was standing adjacent to a seat on the left rear of the cockpit, usually used by the boomer (Air Refueling Operator) when he was not performing refueling operations.  The navigator position was on the left and slightly forward just ahead of the grate, and opposite was the flight engineer’s position.  Forward were the pilot and copilot positions each of which had less complicated instrument panels than the B-52 and a center instrument panel for only four engines.

Walking aft through the rear cockpit door I entered the cargo bay that had a large hydraulically operated door on the right (left side of the aircraft) for moving cargo into and out of the aircraft.  The cargo bay had troop seats down each side and Military Standard 463L cargo pallet positions down the middle.  Toward the rear of the cargo bay was an APU (auxiliary power unit) powered by a small gas turbine. 

At the rear of the cargo bay was the boom operator’s compartment.  Entry was via either of two rectangular and longitudinal holes in the floor into which one carefully stepped.  In the center, once below floor level, was the boomer’s operating position.  The boomer operated on his stomach, with a headrest, as he looked downward and outward through small windows on the rear bottom of the fuselage.  He had a small instrument panel with several controls and an intercom/radio with which to talk to the receiving aircraft as well as his own aircraft cockpit.  He also had a control with which he “flew” the boom.

The KC-135 was a spacious, clean, easy to maintain aircraft which after my experience only minutes before in and around a B-52 seemed much more like a civilian aircraft.  The differences between the civilian aircraft and the military version were significant of course, but the fact that pallets of fixed-position seats could be loaded into the KC-135 made it seem much less a hard-core military aircraft than the B-52, which of course it was.

I suppose Pike could see my eyes glazing over once too many times, so after we left the KC-135 parking area we simply drove around the Base Flight area as he pointed out the different types of aircraft to me.  I would get a closer look at each of those aircraft and learn to maintain their instruments systems on other days, but parked there were C-123, T-29, and T-33 aircraft.

That afternoon we went to get my “regular” line badge and to where I was issued my toolbox, tool pouch, test meter (I still remember it was a PSM-6 multi-meter), and tools.

I was ready to begin on-the-job training, or at least I would be after the buzzing and swirling in my head came to a stop.  Maybe a night’s rest would be enough.