MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
One Saturday in the summer of 1976 I was assigned as Operations Duty Officer at Tinker AFB, OK. This usually was a pointless job that primarily consisted of meeting transient aircraft that had an O-5 or above on board and saying "Welcome to Tinker AFB." But on that Saturday we had aircraft inbound for a large airshow on Sunday, so it was rather more interesting.
USAF aircraft were coming in from all over the place. This included what must have been just about the last F-100 in service - and it looked it. But the Confederate Air Force also was sending vintage aircraft, mainly ones that had been at airshows further north and were heading back to Texas. Some P-51's, a F6F, and a P-39 were inbound from the northwest, while a B-17 "Texas Raider" and the B-29 "Fifi" were coming in from Wright Patterson AFB. The original plan was for the group to rendezvous north of Oklahoma City, join up, and fly around the city before landing at Tinker. But the fighters landed at Offutt AFB to refuel for some reason and that threw the schedule off, aside from really surprising the folks at Offutt.
The rendezvous was no longer possible; the bombers would get there hours ahead of the fighters, so the Tinker base operations folks called Oklahoma City Approach Control to get them to relay a message to the bombers. That phone call went like this:
"Hello, this is Tinker base operations, can you you relay a message to some aircraft that are inbound? Okay, good. The aircraft are a B-29 and a B-17. No, not C! I said BEEE TWENTY NINE and BEEE SEVENTEEN! That's right! All right, tell them not to rendezvous with the P-51's and the other fighters, to just come straight here to Tinker. Yes! That is what I said. Do not wait for the fighter escort and just come on to the base."
I was unable to hear what Ok City Approach Control was saying but I strongly suspect that, "Who is this, really? You know this line is for official business only!" was their reply at least once.
Anyway the bombers made it. The B-17 just landed, but the B-29 buzzed the area several times before landing. This brought people from everywhere. Tinker AFB had an long association with the B-29 since WWII and many of the people who worked on them were still around.
And it was a great airshow!
USAF aircraft were coming in from all over the place. This included what must have been just about the last F-100 in service - and it looked it. But the Confederate Air Force also was sending vintage aircraft, mainly ones that had been at airshows further north and were heading back to Texas. Some P-51's, a F6F, and a P-39 were inbound from the northwest, while a B-17 "Texas Raider" and the B-29 "Fifi" were coming in from Wright Patterson AFB. The original plan was for the group to rendezvous north of Oklahoma City, join up, and fly around the city before landing at Tinker. But the fighters landed at Offutt AFB to refuel for some reason and that threw the schedule off, aside from really surprising the folks at Offutt.
The rendezvous was no longer possible; the bombers would get there hours ahead of the fighters, so the Tinker base operations folks called Oklahoma City Approach Control to get them to relay a message to the bombers. That phone call went like this:
"Hello, this is Tinker base operations, can you you relay a message to some aircraft that are inbound? Okay, good. The aircraft are a B-29 and a B-17. No, not C! I said BEEE TWENTY NINE and BEEE SEVENTEEN! That's right! All right, tell them not to rendezvous with the P-51's and the other fighters, to just come straight here to Tinker. Yes! That is what I said. Do not wait for the fighter escort and just come on to the base."
I was unable to hear what Ok City Approach Control was saying but I strongly suspect that, "Who is this, really? You know this line is for official business only!" was their reply at least once.
Anyway the bombers made it. The B-17 just landed, but the B-29 buzzed the area several times before landing. This brought people from everywhere. Tinker AFB had an long association with the B-29 since WWII and many of the people who worked on them were still around.
And it was a great airshow!