Thread: The First Air Force One

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Oh Wow...

I was a Crew Chief on the last of the EC121's. Stationed in Keflavic Iceland on the NATO Base which is now the International airport. We sent the last one to the bone yard at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in 1979. I remember we spent a ton of time making our baby beautiful for its retirement . This one was special because it had the tail number 121. It was a pretty crappy day and the 121 was ready to take off on its final flight to the museum. It taxied out lined up on the runway and started rolling hard. Just before rotation the nose gear snapped right in half. Ground to stop where she burned to the ground. We dug a big hole and put all the tools for the squadron in it and pushed the plane in behind it with a dozer. Back then we were the Aerospace Defense Command and shut down the squadron to usher in the new AWACS Squadron.

Boy it seems like a different lifetime ago... Thanks for posting that up. http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ec-121.htm
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