Next was NAS Fallon, also in Nevada,
which had no based units at the time and
was a weapon deployment facility – on this
particular day there was no transient aircraft
although on the dump we could see North
American T-28 Trojan, Douglas A-4 and a pair
of Grumman S-2 Trackers, none of which
were identi able.
On the Monday morning we arrived at
the California ANG’s 84th Fighter Interceptor
Squadron (FIS) to see its F-106s. We also
logged the 93rd BW’s entire complement of
nine B-52Ds, ten B-52Fs and 26 KC-135As.
We also went to the California ANG’s
194th FIS unit at Fresno that operated the
Convair F-102A Delta Dagger. On the air eld
were 22 Trackers awaiting or undergoing
conversion to re-bombers. We hadn’t
arranged a visit to the Army Classi cation
Repair Activity Depot (AVCRAD), but a polite
request was rewarded with permission to
walk round the facility. This turned up a
mixture of US Army types: 17 Beech U-8
Seminoles, seven Bell Hueys (made up of
UH-1Bs, UH-1Ds and UH-1Hs), three Bell
OH-58A Kiowas and single examples of a
Boeing CH-47A Chinook, Cessna O-1 Bird
Dog and DHC U-1A Otter.
The rest of the day was spent looking
for wrecks and relics – these included the
Boeing DB-17G Flying Fortress at Tulare that
is still there today and Republic XF-84H at
Bakers eld Kern County Airport that is now
part of the National Museum of the USAF
at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. We called66 Aviation News incorporating Jets February 2018Above: First port of call was the then NAS Moffett Field – home to the US Navy’s west coast
Lockheed P-3 Orion eet that utilised the old ‘blimp’ hangars. Co-located was the NASA Ames
Research Center. It was home to a number of unusual development aircraft including the Bell
X-14 STOL test aircraft, N704NA, developed for the USAF. The aircraft originally bore the serial
56-4022.
Below: The author and his friends were allowed to sit in NASA U-2C N708NA at the Ames facility
because this example was not used for reconnaissance missions and so didn’t have any
sensitive equipment on board.64-69_tales_part1_1974DCDC.mfDC.indd 66 05/01/2018 18:16