I Always Wanted to Fly: America's Cold War Airmen

8. Taming the RB-45C Tornado

Chapter 8 Taming the RB-45C Tornado We were flying supersonic [on October 14, 1947]! And it was as smooth as a baby’s bottom: Grandma could be sitting up there sipping lemonade. I kept the speed off the scale for about twenty seconds, then raised the nose to slow down. General Chuck Yeager We also pushed it through Mach 1 more than once. Our group lost eight airplanes in that first year [1950]. One of the first we lost, we think the guy went through the Mach trying to get down. . . . I went through the Mach with it—rough as hell going through, rougher coming back out. Hal Austin, RB-45C Tornado pilot The B-45 was a 1943-vintage design, America’s first all-jet bomber, with a rigid, straight wing and a B-17–style gunner’s station in the tail. The XB-45 flew for the first time on March 17, 1947, piloted by North American test pilot George Krebs, who died flying the XB-45 on September 20, 1948. With his untimely death, no further significant flight testing was conducted, and the B-45 went into production. Many of its flaws were later discovered by some unlucky air crews. Ninety-six 152 Taming the RB-45C Tornado bomber versions of the North American B-45A were built. The aircraft were assigned to the Tactical Air Command with their final duty station the 47th Bombardment Wing at RAF Station Sculthorpe in County Norfolk, England. The last forty-three aircraft built, incorporating advances in design and lessons learned from the A models, were delivered in 1950 and 1951. Ten of the forty-three C models were built as bombers ; the other thirty-three were reconnaissance versions. The production line for the B-45 was then discontinued. All of the forty-three C models were assigned to SAC. In contrast to the A-model bombers, the C model had a solid rather than a glassed-in nose, carried 1,200 gallon wingtip fuel tanks, and, best of all, was capable of in-flight refueling. Air refueling enabled the aircraft to reach nearly anyplace on the globe without having to land as long as a tanker was available to support it. Furthermore, the RB-45Cs were equipped with a remarkable suite of high- and low-altitude cameras designed by the renowned Harvard astronomer James G. Baker. On August 26, 1950, the first of the thirty-three RB-45C production models was delivered to the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Barksdale AFB near Shreveport, Louisiana. By the end of 1950, SAC reported that twenty-seven RB-45s equipped the 91st Wing. Its unit equipment (UE) authorization had been set at thirty-six aircraft. The wing began its incremental move from Barksdale to Lockbourne AFB near Columbus, Ohio, in June 1951. By that time, the wing had expanded to thirty-eight B/RB-45Cs, and SAC headquarters had increased the wing’s UE aircraft authorization to forty-five. That would be the high-water mark for the RB-45C wing in terms of the number of aircraft it was authorized to have. In 1952 the C-model bombers were turned over to TAC. SAC finished the year with twenty-two RB-45Cs on its roster. In only sixteen months of operation, eleven of the thirty-three RB-45Cs had perished. One had been shot down by Russian MiGs in a secrecy-shrouded mission near the Yalu River. In January 1953 SAC began the transfer of the RB-45C to TAC, as SAC’s inventory of newer RB-47 aircraft increased. The last four RB-45s, assigned to the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance 153 Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron at Yokota Air Base in Japan, were transferred to the Far East Air Force on December 1, 1953. Colonel Harold R. Austin In late 1949, after flying the Berlin Airlift, Colonel Harold R. ‘‘Hal’’ Austin, then a captain, was assigned to the 324th SRS of the 91st SRW at Barksdale. The wing had two other squadrons, the 322d and the 323d. In the summer of 1950 Hal was selected to transition into the RB-45C. He picked up a brand-new aircraft from the factory in Long Beach and, along with other air crews, began the task of learning to fly a jet airplane. Hal Austin had no checklist, no technical data, and no company technical representative with pilot qualifications who could answer his...