Page 45 - Aviation News (February 2020)

dominates the island, which is also home be on station within 45 minutes of being
to the Cobra Dane fi xed radar site that alerted. “We orbited to the north of the
looks towards Kamchatka. expected re-entry area, keeping a good
distance from the Kamchatka coast. We
FIRST PLATFORMS were never intercepted by Soviet fi ghters
In October 1960 General Dynamics during my time,” Hawes remembers.
completed modifi cations of KC-135A As signal monitor Hawes controlled
59-1491 through its secretive Big Safari the Ballistic Streak Camera (BSC) and
programme. Operated by Air Force determined which cameras were auto-
Systems Command and codenamed Nancy controlled or assigned to the MT. He
Rae, it was redesignated a JKC-135A. The assisted the tactical co-ordinator in
aircraft arrived at Shemya on December deciding when to start the aircraft’s
31, 1961 with its four fl ight and ten mission southerly run. “We would tell the pilot to
crew. Retired USAF Lt Col Kingdon Hawes, start down the ‘data track’ as we called it,
was a signal monitor on board that aircraft ideally to be in the middle of that run to
and describes it: “Down the starboard side photograph the missile as it re-entered.”
were ten windows behind which specialist It was not a precise calculation. “Our best
cameras sat including 16mm, 35mm and indication came from the nose-mounted
70mm movie cameras and UV and IR antenna, operated by Raven 3, who tracked
equipment to photograph the warheads. the Mode-S beacon on the missile’s test
The pedestal-mounted cameras could warhead.” Raven 4 captured transmissions
Main photo: RC-135S, 61-4128, is pictured be aimed automatically, or by the Manual from the Soviet range equipment as it
in its current Cobra Ball confi guration. Tracker (MT) [person] using a modifi ed tracked re-entry. Onboard USAF Security
Dan Stijovich gunsight from a B-50. The MT sat on Service operators listened for any Soviet air
a raised chair looking out of an upper defence responses.
uring the Cold War the Kura fuselage observation blister.” In addition “When the MT saw the incoming
warhead test range on the huge, to cameras, spectrometers, radiometers missile, usually as it began to break up
largely desolate Kamchatka and photometers attempted to detect [separate], he shouted, ‘Gaslight, Gaslight,
DPeninsula in the Soviet Far East the missiles’ material composition and Gaslight.’ The tactical co-ordinator
was the standard aim point for hundreds of measure electromagnetic radiation. fl icked the master switch turning on all
missile tests. It is an area of approximately Three large dipole antennae were the cameras. The gyro-stabilised BSC
38 sq miles (98.4km ) with the nearest externally mounted on the right-hand was about four feet wide, fi ve feet high
settlement being Klyuchi. Construction side of the aircraft with another on the and weighed several hundred pounds. It
started in 1955 of six monitoring posts to left. These collected missile telemetry pointed out of the number one window,
record missile warhead re-entry. The fi rst with an AN/ALA-6 direction-fi nding closest to the nose. An infrared sensor
use of the range for this was on August 21, antenna on the underside. Soviet pointed out of a central window. The
1957 when an R-7 missile launched from transmissions were monitored from four manual tracker aimed his sight towards
Tyuratam (today’s Baikonur), 3,940 miles ‘Raven’ operator’s positions. the small bright ‘star’ that came through
(6,339km) away in Kazakhstan, broke up The crews were divided into two teams the missile debris. This was the test
prematurely just prior to re-entry. that rotated out of their home base at warhead and when his crosshairs were
To determine Soviet missile capabilities Eielson AFB to Shemya every other week. matched with the infrared auto-tracker he
US intelligence operations concentrated “We worked on good quality intelligence,” heard a tone. He fl icked another switch
on the inhospitable Aleutian Islands, recalls Hawes. “Occasionally launches that slaved everything to the auto tracker
close to the Russian Far East coastline. happened that we knew nothing about, but until impact. The whole thing was over in
One island, Shemya, was ideally located that was unusual. Most weeks we fl ew one about 30 seconds.”
as a base for US reconnaissance aircraft. or two missions; it was rare not to have at Regular name changes were a feature
Still incredibly remote, it is less than six least one. On about 90% of our fl ights we of 59-1491’s career. In 1963 it was
sq miles (15½km ) in size and regularly had missile intercepts.” redesignated an RC-135S, codenamed
a ected by severe, rapidly changeable For the fi rst few years most test Nancy Rae, then Wanda Belle and from
weather. The 10,000ft (3,048m) runway launches were at night. Nancy Rae could March 1967 Rivet Ball.

Left: Rivet Ball, 59-1491, on the Shemya, Alaska fl ight line wearing its original silver fi nish and
black-painted starboard wing. Via King Hawes
Above: RC-135E, 62-4137, Rivet Amber on take-o clearly showing (before painting) the special
fi breglass panel covering the phased-array radar installed in 1967. USAF

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