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Lt. Cmdr. Everett Alvarez, the second-longest-held Vietnam POW and longest-held aviator, disembarks from the C-141 in 1973 and is greeted by Adm. Noel Gaylor, PACOM Commander, and Gen. William G. Moore, 13th Air Force Commander.
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An era came to an end on 6 May as the US Air Force retired the last Lockheed Martin C-141 StarLifter airlifter. The last of the breed was flown to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, Ohio, to close out the transport’s unparalleled forty-three year career.
The C-141 was the world’s first turbofan-powered transport, serving as a major component of the US strategic airlift force since entering operational service in 1965.
A total of 285 C-141 aircraft were built from 1963 to 1968. The peak year for production was 1967 when 107 C-141s came off the then-Lockheed-Georgia Company assembly line in Marietta, Georgia. The StarLifter fleet recorded a grand total of 10,640,908 flight hours or an average of approximately 38,494 hours per airframe. The lone L-300 commercial variant of the StarLifter was used as a company demonstrator. It was later sold to NASA and became the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. It served science for two decades.
The first flight of the first C-141A—there was no prototype—came on 17 December 1963, the sixtieth anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight. That aircraft (Air Force serial number 61-2775) is now on display at the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover AFB, Delaware. The StarLifter began its Air Force service career on 19 October 1964 when the first aircraft was delivered to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, for aircrew training. More than thirty squadrons with sixteen active duty Air Force, Air Force Reserve Command, Air National Guard, Air Education and Training Command, and Air Force Materiel Command units eventually flew the aircraft.
In August 1965, the first C-141 missions were flown to Vietnam. The C-141A aircraft were capable of carrying either 138 troops or approximately 62,000 pounds of cargo, reducing a seventy-two hour trip with stops from Travis AFB, California, to Tan Son Nhut AB, South Vietnam, in a C-124 (the C-141’s piston-powered predecessor), to a thirty-six hour trip. On the return, crews could carry up to eighty litters plus attendants on medevac flights. Some 6,000 medevac flights were flown on StarLifters from 1965 until 1972.
In the early 1980s, 270 of the C-141As were stretched by adding twenty-three feet to the fuselage and were redesignated C-141B. The C-141B could carry either 68,725 pounds of cargo, or 200 troops, 155 paratroops, or fourteen aeromedical attendants and a maximum of 103 litters—although the usual load was seventy-six ambulatory and litter patients when comfort pallets, a cargo pallet-mounted lavatory and kitchen combination, were used.
From 2003 until the StarLifter’s last combat mission in September 2005, C-141 crews flew more than seventy percent of the aeromedical evacuation flights from points in the Middle East and Iraq. From 2002 until 2005, C-141 crews flew more than 2,000 combat sorties and moved more than seventy million pounds of cargo in theater.
In addition to participating in every military operation from Vietnam to Iraqi Freedom, C-141 crews also performed humanitarian relief flights to nearly seventy countries on all seven continents. StarLifter crews conducted Antarctic resupply flights for nearly three decades, landing directly on the ice without skis at McMurdo Station. C-141s were also used for flight research.
Fittingly, the last operational C-141 missions were to fly relief supplies to areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to fly evacuees out of those areas last fall.
On the last flight, the last StarLifter (serial number 66-0177), a C-141C nicknamed Hanoi Taxi, was flown by a crew from Air Force Reserve Command’s 445th Airlift Wing from the Patterson side of the base to the Wright Field side where the museum is located. The flight lasted about forty-five minutes.
This particular aircraft was first flown in 1967. It was converted to a C-141B in the early 1980s. In the mid-1990s, the aircraft was one of fifty-six C-141Bs to be equipped with digital avionics to become C-141Cs. Hanoi Taxi was retired with 39,469 flight hours.
On 12 February 1973, the last StarLifter, then a C-141A assigned to the 63rd Military Airlift Wing at Norton AFB, California, was flown to Gia Lam Airport, near Hanoi, North Vietnam, in the first mission of Operation Homecoming, the repatriation of former American prisoners of war. Forty prisoners were flown out on the first flight, and 103 more came out on two other Norton-based C-141s (serial numbers 65-0243 and 65-0236) flown to Hanoi that day. Other flights followed, and the C-141s became known as Freedom Birds.
In preparation for the last flights, the 445th AW maintainers had hand-washed the entire aircraft with Formula 409 spray cleaner. Hanoi Taxi literally gleamed.
There were two flights on 5 May recreating the POWs’ release from captivity. Many of the “jailbirds”—as the former POWs kiddingly refer to themselves—were in Dayton for a reunion and had not been on a C-141 in thirty-three years. Navy Cmdr. Ed Davis sneaked a stray dog he named Ma-Co out of Hanoi in 1973, so he felt that it was only appropriate to carry Sophie, his current dog, on board with him during the flight. Another former POW, Cmdr. Tom Hanton still fit in the same dark blue trousers, blue shirt, and gray jacket he was issued by the North Vietnamese the day he was released, and he wore the ensemble again. As one former POW said, “I was a fighter pilot, but the two most beautiful aircraft I ever saw were the B-52 and the C-141. The B-52s forced the North Vietnamese to negotiate, and the C-141 brought me home.”
Prior to the last takeoff on 6 May, the members of the 445th AW gathered in the hangar. The final flight crew was introduced. Special guests included Gen. John Bradley, chief of Air Force Reserve Command; Gen. Duncan McNabb, commander of Air Mobility Command; and retired Lt. Gen. Ed Mechenbier, one of the POWs repatriated on Hanoi Taxi and the last Vietnam-era POW still serving when he retired in 2004.
In a poignant moment, MSgt. Henry Harlow, a maintainer who led the effort to have Hanoi Taxi essentially become a flying museum, put his hand on the crew door after it was shut for the last time and bowed his head. He held it there for a few moments, then ran his hand down the nose of the aircraft and grabbed his paddles to marshal the aircraft out.
The formal retirement came after the aircraft was shut down for the last time. “The C-141 made strategic brigade airlift a reality,” McNabb noted. “It was a magnificent aircraft. ’177 will carry the memories of all who flew on her. Rest well. You have been blocked into history 100 percent mission complete.” A formation of F-16s from the 178th Fighter Wing at the Springfield-Beckley Airport, Ohio, flew the Missing Man formation in honor of the POWs and in honor of all other US military members who didn’t return.
Hanoi Taxi went on public display in the museum’s outdoor airpark in August, a fitting tribute to the most famous example of a legendary airlifter. Thirteen StarLifters are now preserved as static displays at bases where the aircraft were formerly stationed or other aviation museums.
Jeff Rhodes is the associate editor of Code One.
From The Cockpit: The Final Flight Of The C-141
By Maj. Stephen A. Schnell
Even under normal circumstances, most aircrews are not thrilled with an 0615 brief time. This morning was no different in that respect. What did make this briefing and subsequent flight stimulating was the realization that today, 6 May, we would be a part of history.
On Friday evening, a retirement party was held for 66-0177 and all the other 284 T-tails that served so gallantly for so long. It was a warm goodbye to the StarLifter from more than 1,100 former aircrew members and a couple of hundred others for whom the StarLifter was an important part of their lives. On Saturday morning, though, it was time to make this bird operational for the last time.
The expanded crew of thirteen went through the same standard brief crew members have come to memorize and expect. All aspects of the flight, including CRM, emergencies, and who’s the NCOIC were discussed. One slight addition was simply, “Oh, by the way, the four-star AMC commander and three-star AFRC commander will be on board today.” Besides this slight blood pressure elevator, the briefing went off normal-normal.
Finding the airfield identifier for a closed runway was a challenge that had base ops and the crew stumped. We decided to enter FFO (Wright-Patterson’s identifier) and sort it out with tower later. Either way, at 0930 we were landing on the 7,000-foot,
black asphalt runway that had lots of yellow X’s on it behind the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
A small amount of fanfare greeted the crew as they walked to the aircraft. Nearly 1,000 members of the 445th Airlift Wing, the last group to fly the StarLifter, gave one last salute to the C-141.
Once inside, the crew got down to business. The flight engineers and loadmasters accomplished, as they always have, a thorough preflight. Then we began our avionics preflight in the cockpit. Once strapped into our seats, the aircraft commander, Lt. Col. Steve Johnson, the 89th Airlift Squadron commander, called for the Before Starting Engines checklist.
Reality began to set in at this point: This would be the last time this and each subsequent checklist would ever be read for this airplane. After forty-three years, and countless thousands of engine starts, this was it. With the turn of each yellow page, it became clear that there would never be a need to turn it back. With great pride, I read every step through the Before Taxi checklist, and then closed the book.
Taxi out was unique, with two base fire trucks spraying ’177 so heavily we could barely see the taxiway. Col. Johnson pushed the power up for takeoff and, as always, the four TF33-P-7s howled into action. We were so light (30,000 pounds of fuel
and no cargo) that the plane leapt off the ground in just over 2,000 feet. Anyone who has flown the StarLifter knows how agile the plane is when it is light. Today was no different. We cycled Gen. Duncan McNabb and Lt. Gen.
John Bradley in the pilot’s seat and gave the StarLifter a few victory laps over its last official runway. The runway at the museum is only three miles from our home ramp, but it took us about forty-five minutes to get there.
The runway behind the museum is on a heading of 090/270. By regulation, any aircraft using that runway must land to the east (090), regardless of the winds. On this day, the supervisor of flying was calling winds 340 at ten knots, a left quartering
tail wind. (Author’s note: This is where the pilot performing the landing begins to build his “why the landing wasn’t perfect” excuse …)
Because of the winds and the uniqueness of the landing, we flew a planned initial low approach. The approach, which went down to approximately 100 feet, fooled the nearly 2,000 people in attendance and caused at least one TV station to break away from regularly scheduled programming only to see the airplane power up and go around. It felt great to pull up into the closed pattern, with the crowd below, and have a sports car for a jet. Climbing to 1,000 feet above the crowd for a last downwind leg to landing was magnificent. Rolling off the perch, we were committed to the landing.
The aircraft touched down at 0928 on the right main gear (did I mention the squirrelly winds?), but it was a smooth landing. As the left main gear settled, and the thrust reversers and spoilers deployed, a huge cheer erupted on the flight deck. We were down safely, yet again, in a StarLifter.
As I began to return the thrust reversers to the Rev Idle position, I began to think of the tens of thousands of pilots and aircrew before me who had done this very same procedure. The last flight was nearly complete. We taxied close to the crowd and ran the Engine Shutdown checklist. As the pilot reached up and turned the switches to Off, we heard the familiar hum of the engines winding down to silence (and the scanner, no doubt, got to see the last four gallons of JP-8 pour out the PND valve).
We had done it, and it was an honor to do it for so many others who had a role in this plane’s overwhelming success. This aircraft has been a part of so many lives; to experience it shutting down…and then become eerily silent…was sad. The moment was equally filled with great pride. The StarLifter had a new home and a well-deserved place in history.
Maj. Stephen Schnell is an Air Reserve technician and the chief of scheduling for the 89th Airlift Squadron, 445th Airlift Wing (AFRC) at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. In May, he was the last pilot to ever fly a C-141. In December, he will complete C-5 transition training.
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