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First arrivals to Fairchild Air Force Base cannot help but notice
the imposing sight of a static B-52 Stratofortress aircraft looming
over a small sea of smaller aircraft in Heritage Park. Yet few
people notice the “odd-man-out” sitting way in the back with no path
leading to it; a crisscross of four Strategic Air Command-marked
rail cars.
“I wondered what these cars were for when I first
saw them, it baffled me,” said Tech. Sgt. Benjamin Whitfield, 92nd
Air Refueling Wing historic property custodian.
These
unmarked rail cars give an air of abandonment, no sign illuminates a
purpose largely forgotten in the years they have sat in the back of
the park; an oddity on an airbase. These cars have been speculated
to have been used for transporting World War II soldiers, to carry
nuclear warheads or to have been a mobile headquarters like Air
Force One.
“When I became the historic property custodian and was first
shown the interiors of the cars … I was amazed,” Whitfield said.
“Who knew that we were just sitting on something so cool like this?”
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July 10, 2017 - Tech. Sgt. Benjamin Whitfield, 92nd Air Refueling
Wing historic property custodian, stands in the cavernous hull of
"Little John", a former KC-135 simulator at Fairchild Air Force
Base, Washington. The KC-135 and B-52 were often used together on
missions, so training often occurred in the same place. (U.S. Air
Force photo by Airman 1st Class Ryan Lackey)
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Hidden inside these gray train car shells is a unique
historical treasure that shares a special bond with the
B-52D, the KC-135 Stratotanker and Fairchild AFB. It is the
last, complete original B-52D simulator in existence,
code-name: Alpine Clover, with supporting cars named Little
John, Andrew Squire and DFX-7 adjoining it.
“Everything is much more advanced since these were last
used,” Whitfield said. “We can do in one room what several
specialized cars full of computers and machines were needed
to accomplish, but we needed it, so the Air Force made it
happen.”
During the latter stages of B-52 production, it was found
necessary to use a simulated environment for pilots and
crews to practice the complicated procedures to fly the
massive aircraft. It was deemed too expensive to build a
facility at every B-52 capable base, so Air Force engineers
called upon a bit of ingenuity.
“You had to ask
yourself back then what the simplest solution was,” he said.
“I’m not 100 percent sure how they came to the decision to
use train cars, but I imagine some genius had the idea to
just put the trainer on wheels.”
18 sets of two
converted Pullman passenger rail cars were modified and
converted to be mobile B-52D and KC-135A simulators at Hill
AFB, Utah. The problem of not being able to build a
simulator at each base was solved, they would just roll a
portable one where it was needed to train pilots.
“During the Cold War there were always KC-135s and B-52s in
the air,” Whitfield said. “The Air Force had to maintain a
ton of training to keep our pilots up in the air, ready to
do their missions. With these simulators, they could hook-up
a single train engine and haul them to wherever they were
needed next.”
For several years these mobile training
centers, like Alpine Clover, roamed across the country to
give bomber and refueling pilots vital experience. The cars
made Fairchild a permanent home in 1964, when it was decided
that it was cheaper to simply fly pilots to where the
simulators were stationed.
“You had to be in a
simulator before you ever got into the cockpit of a real
one,” Whitfield said. “Simulators were a cheaper way to get
pilots trained on these complex aircraft than risking it in
the air while on the job.”
Stateside training was
vital to the Vietnam War effort, as the B-52D model was
capable of holding the heaviest bomb payloads and saw
considerable use between 1968 and 1975. Early B-52 models
began to reach the end of their service life after the war,
with the B-52D retiring between the years of 1978 to 1983.
“The train car simulators were officially retired in
1989,” Whitfield said. “Any update the aircraft received, so
too did these simulators, as pilots had to train on the most
current stuff. Newer and more accurate simulators finally
rendered them obsolete.”
With over 30 years of
service, the simulators were dismantled for parts to upkeep
the remaining B-52 fleet, and only Alpine Clover and its
sister cars remained after several years of retirement.
“They came to me and said that the simulator and train
car were going to be surplused, and it would be nice to add
them to the base museum,” said retired Col. Arnold Weinman,
former 92nd Air Refueling Wing commander. “We could show the
public what technology was like back then. Now remember that
we had gone to the moon already, so we had pretty
sophisticated technology and this was all transistors,
solenoids and so forth. It would be a good thing to show the
kids how we did it in the old days.”
Homeless and
doomed to be scrapped without the museum, Weinman initiated
Operation Cannonball on Nov. 1, 1990, a volunteer mission to
move the cars to the Fairchild Heritage Museum and Park as a
permanent display.
“It took a little hard work to
move those cars,” Weinman said. “We laid these sections of
salvaged track, moved the cars about 20 feet, then
hopscotched another section of track from the back to the
front and repeated that. It took a few weeks to accomplish
the move. ”
The train cars completed their move and
were dedicated to the base museum on Nov. 16, 1990, where
they stayed open to the public until the museum closed down
and the buildings removed by a federal order in 2002. Many
of the museum's artifacts found a new home in 2016 at the
Honor Point Military & Aerospace Museum in Spokane, but the
train cars remained. Since the cessation of visitors to the
rail-cars after the museum closed, they have slowly faded
from memory over the past 15 years while remaining in plain
sight.
Always there, but regarded as just a forgotten
oddity.
“These cars are a living part of the base's
history,” said Calistra Alba, 92nd ARW historian. “Early on
when the base first hosted a bombardment wing of B-52s,
these cars were likely the only simulator they had
available. The base is 75 years old and these cars have been
here for over 50 years, so they go hand in hand with the
base's origins.
“Its important people remember them,
respect and protect these artifacts for people in the future
to enjoy,” Alba added.
Surely this hidden gem of the
Air Force's and Fairchild's history deserves to be
remembered and honored as the last of its kind, surviving to
show us how then, same as now, we train like we fight, to
deliver rapid global mobility … now.
By U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Ryan Lackey
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2017
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