I was a KC-135 crew chief for many years of my AF career. To this day I can almost visualize every inch of those birds. They took me in and out of SEA over a period from 1965 - 1972. In fact as a crew chief, they took me for several rides to places on every continent. I just bumped into a retired pilot that had my serial number in his log book 57-1438. Where is my old bird...? That was my first true love...!

crewed kc135A, tail number 7980 up until they took me off the flightline in 1978. I really loved that 'ol bird. Missed the crew chief patch by one take-off. Would love to run into that 2nd Lt who thought it nice to swat the water switches instead of holding them for the required 3 seconds. If your out there looking at this, say high, got a few remarks.......

Many of you may have seen the tragic pictures of 57-1418, damaged by incompetence at Tinker.

1418 was the first active duty aircraft I layed my hands on. The date was August 15, 1966 (as close as I can remember) and 1418 was parked on spot 11 at Clinton Sherman AFB, Ok. One of the first things I got to do was count the 'bright pink rivits' on the bottom of the wing. Fuel Cell had just dusted it to verify and classify how many leaks we had and how serious they were. I don't remember the details but she was a polkadot bird that day.

The crew chief and my trainer was SSgt Robert Skutley.

Another bit of history the Tinker guys destroyed; 1418 was the lead aircraft out of U-Tapao Dec. 11, 1972. I have a sequence of photos of that launch.

For what it is worth, the official USAF Fact Sheet for the -135 says that the KC-135R/T with the GE CFM-56 engines (which develop 21.634 pounds of thrust per engine) can takeoff at up to 322,500 pound gross weights. Whew. I had taken off in an A-model at 297,600 at Eielson in Alaska (at 45 below zero F) and at nearly the same weight in an E. The old girl uses a lot of runway at heavy weights!

As you can tell from the e-mail address, I have some small connection with the KC-135...about 4000 flight hours in the KC-135A/Q/E to be specific over twenty years with the old girl. The best source for -135 information I have found is BOEING KC-135 STRATOTANKER: More than just a Tanker by Robert S. Hopkins III. Published by Aerofax in 1997. My favorite A-model (now an R) was 61-0313 'the glider.' She was actually run out of gas on short final to K I Sawyer AFB and landed by the AC/IP after the rest of the crew bailed out...when an A-model is quiet a few hundred feet in the air it IS probably time to go. She landed just short of the overrun, bounced up on the paved surface and rolled to a stop with surprisingly little damage. Loved to take that bird TDY and tell the Transient Alert maintenance folks to "treat her kindly, she's already been run out of gas once." While at the Phoenix Air Guard we had one E-model we were allowed to retrofit with turbocompressors used on the 707 airliners (and the narrow body Air Force One aircraft). That really helped the airconditioning system keep up with the extreme heat here in the Desert. Sadly, a lot of my old friends are now sitting in the Boneyard at D-M. I visit them periodically. More air museums need to request a -135 for their collection before they all become razor blades or cars.

Does anyone know of a site that has serial #'s and histories of all the individual aircraft? Something like C141 Heaven? A daunting task with over so many a/c produed.

I was a Boom Operator on the KC-135. 1500 hrs total and half were combat over Viet-Nam. One night we flew into a canyon at 30,000 feet plus with St.Elmos fire on the windshield and the whole aircraft shaking so badly in the effects of a monsoon. The Bird was uncontrollable and the pilot just took his hands of the wheel. Whoever designed this aircraft did a heck of a job.

I was an IP in the A model and Mike DeCarbo is correct, we had the P&W J-57. Art Schfler is also correct in that the max gross weight was 301600lbs;however, the max gross take-off weight was 297000lbs. 4600 lbs. of fuel was calculated to be burned during taxi and take-off.

The engines on the "A" model aircraft were P&W J57-59W. The "B" models, which didn't go into service until 1962, had the TF-33 fan motors. Thee were primarily for the "Looking Glass" missions.

I didn't know that the apeed and takeoff weight has been degraded. When I was a navgator on A & C models, cruise was 285 IAS, TAS was 450kts and gross weight was 301,600 lbs.

like to know the sil heights for the doors