Webb’s World of Work
At Webb AFB I worked in the electronics radar shop. We were the largest group of people in the Air Defense Squadron (The 331st and often called the Three Thirsty First). There were other electronic techs in Communications who were responsible for the radios and navigation aids in the F-102s that we maintained. More techs handled the weapons that were used on the aircraft.
The 60s were a different time. The Atom Bomb from WWII and the arms race had led the US to develop nuclear weapons for everything. This included the 102 also. We did have more conventional missiles too. The 331st was part of a protective shield along the southern US border. The most obvious threat was Cuba and Russian submarines. Often when working on an airplane I would sit in the cockpit while another tech worked on the ground. The radar could see out 200 miles. I would often watch tropical storms coming ashore.
We would practice being at war everyday. We kept two aircraft ready to launch with in two minutes. There were about 20 more that could be launched with in 10 minutes. My job was to make sure the radar system (actually called a fire control system in Air Force lingo) and the computer systems to launch the missiles working. This was in the dim times. Transistors had been invented but were not used in the F-102s, yet. No chips either every component was discrete. Clever engineers had found ways to minimize things and make it all very light weight. However, the tubes and other components would frequently fail.
Each morning we would normally launch six airplanes that would seek out a target air craft. The target was usually an old F89. The pilots would fly multiple missions directed by ground controllers. When the aircraft landed, about 90 minutes later, they would be refueled and relaunched, unless they had a malfunction in some way. These practice missions had practice missiles in them. These missiles had recording devices in them that recorded information on paper film. There were 28 separate channels of information recorded by each missile. Each aircraft carried 6 normal missiles or two nukes or a mixture of 3 and 1. The missiles were carried inside the aircraft attached to rails. When the missiles were to be fired a series of doors opened and the rails were extended into the airstream. An additional magnetic recorder recorded what the pilot saw on his radar screen. Now I told you all this so I could describe another job I had while I was at Webb. I got to work in the debriefing section. There were two of us and a sergeant to tell us what to do. When the airplanes landed, we would retrieve the magnetic tape and the paper film from the fake missiles. We would reload all of the recorders at the same time. Then we would take the film and magnetic recorder into the debriefing area. We developed the film. An officer would watch the recording and talk to the pilot about his mission and essentially grade his performance. After lunch, we would launch 6 more aircraft, recover and relaunch. Sometimes after dinner there would be additional missions and even night missions. Working in the debriefing area was great work from my perspective. The work was busy when the aircraft landed but after that it was easy. We did have to demagnetize the tapes, keep the tape player running (this was a device worth about $100k) and keep the film developer working. The sergeant wanted to work days and I got to work afternoons. It was great. Most of the time the afternoon missions were scrubbed. That let me get back to the golf course. I had this duty for about 90 days.
One other duty I had for a while was to work in the calibration barn. Now this wasn’t a barn but an A-frame open on one end and a large window on the opposite side. An F-102 would fit about half way in this area. When ever an aircraft reached 100 hours of operation multiple inspections took place on all systems including the fire control system, er radar system. We would work through a long check list to make sure that the systems would launch both rockets and missiles with minimal errors. This work took considerable time and we usually worked at night. Often it was quite cold. There was coffee and an enclosed work area. We also had special air conditioning units that could heat or cool the electronics. On day a tech had the hose from the heater under his field jacket. He blew up like a doll but he was warm. One night a couple of the older guys got into an argument about whether farts would burn. Now having taken high school chemistry I knew that they should, but I had no actual evidence. Well they prepared by eating beans, hard boiled eggs and beer. One of them dropped his shorts and trousers bent over while his partner light a lighter. Well the fart was spectacular but the flaming fart also caught is prodigious hair on his ass on fire too. The rolled him on the floor and treated him for minor burns. The story of that night is probably still being told. I don’t remember how long I worked in this area but it was probably about 30 days. It was a good learning experience since you had to work on every component of the system.
One day one of the junior NCOs decided to give us a desktop exercise in troubleshooting. Now these are good things. And what I have learned over the past 50 years is that most people cannot troubleshoot a problem. Anyway, he wrote down a problem and then asked us how we would approach the problem. I am not sure why he asked me first but I told him what I would do and he immediately started chewing me out for not following his expected procedure. Without being too technical, there was one light on a box in the aircraft’s nose. Now when you were working on it these front panels were almost always open. My first question was, “Is this light on?” His answer was no. Since the light was powered by 28 volts DC. My next question was, “Is the switch on the unit providing 28 volts DC on.” His answer was “No”. About a minute into his tirade about my lack of troubleshooting ability, I asked him if I was right? I was. He never wanted to play this game again. However, the rest of us often did so.