‘Speckled Trout’

[Guest Hoser]

From af.mil:

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFPN) -- A distinguished career came to a close here Feb. 10. After flying senior military leaders and undergoing rigorous testing for more than 31 years, the Speckled Trout tail number 61-2669 officially retired.

"Speckled Trout was the primary transport aircraft for every Air Force chief of staff since General David C. Jones (July 1974 to June 1978)," said Gen. Bruce Carlson, Air Force Materiel Command commander. "Not only has it transported distinguished people ... there are countless examples of technological advantages that our warfighters have reaped as benefits from the work that has been done on this great airplane."

C-135 tail number 61-2669 rolled off the assembly line in 1962, and began its service for the Air Force as a weather reconnaissance aircraft.

In 1975, the aircraft became part of Project Speckled Trout and served primarily as overseas transportation for Air Force chiefs of staff. The Speckled Trout has also been an intricate part of many test programs at the Air Force Flight Test Center.

"It is bittersweet for the men and women of the 412th Flight Test Squadron and Edwards to see this plane leave and go out of service, but the time is now," said Lt. Col. Ed Topps, 412th FLTS commander. "The plane has unique avionics equipment and has difficult-to-maintain, one-of-a-kind systems. And besides, after 31,000 hours flying, I'm sure (she) needs a break."

As the Trout heads into retirement, mission continuity will not be lost. The back-up airplane for the Trout is called KC-01 and is already flying in support of Project Speckled Trout's mission.

"We'll use our back-up airplane for about a year until it retires as well," Colonel Topps said. "Then we'll take delivery of a KC-135R model that's currently in Greenville, Texas, being modified for the same mission."

The new KC-135 will have a slightly different mission that supports greater tests and air refueling requirements here.

The Speckled Trout will rest in the care of the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum here, said Doug Nelson, museum director.

"Our museum's goal is to depict the history of Edwards and of flight testing. The Speckled Trout was definitely a major player in both of these," Mr. Nelson said.

Spekled Trout? WTFO. "Sperm Whale" must have already been taken.

Hoser

[Bergman]

I got a chance to tour the Trout a few years ago at Offutt. Sweet airplane! Very nice DV accomodations and a few gee-whiz trinkets being tested (comm stuff from what I remember).

The "KC-01" they referenced in the article is actually "Casey 01", tail #57-2589, which is the old CINC-SAC's DV aircraft. It was moved from Offutt to Hickam (PACAF) in the late 90's. It is basically the same quality/condition of the old 89 AW 707s...probably the nicest E-Model!

[Clayton Bigsby]

Does the boom still work on that plane? I see it hasn't been removed...

[Bergman]

Originally posted by Chuck Farleston:

Does the boom still work on that plane? I see it hasn't been removed...

Sure does!

[Login Name]

damn, would have been nice to get rid of it all together. it's always fun to get the call friday afternoon at 4:30 when you're going into the weekend w/no flyers, your jets are broke as hell, and you get to generate one or two to support it. awesome.

[Hacker]

Finless brown trout

[Guest THE10MAN]

Hacker! Shame!

[Guest PilotKD]

Actually, the Speckled Trout was at the Deid a few months back, right before Christmas if I remember correctly. We had a visit from the Secretery of the Air Force. I wish I had gotten pictures of it because we held short for takeoff right in front of its parking spot. It was not painted like that 135 above though. This one was white on top and polished aluminum on the bottom where the blue is on that 135 above. It also didn't have a boom on it. You could tell there was a boom pod and a place where the boom was, but there was no boom on it.

[Scooter14]

61-2669 was a converted C-135B. Never had a boom. They were built for MATS (later MAC) for high speed transport, but were more difficult to load. They had TF-33 engines with reversers.

The same line was converted to some WC's that eventually became OC-135's, a WC-135W (61-2667), a WC-135 test-bed for the 645 MATS Det in Majors Field, TX (61-2666) and some RC-135S "Cobra Ball" aircraft (61-2662, 663 and 664 which crashed on Shemya, AK around 1983).

Casey 01 was always a KC-135E. It was CINCSAC and CINCSTRAT's DV bird for a while before it left to become part of the PACAF DV airlift squadron. I got to tour this plane about 8 years ago before it left Offutt, and it was also a sweet ride.

I spoke with a friend of mine in that squadron just the other night, and he said 589 has a boom, but they don't have any boom operators in his squadron right now, so they haven't been using it for any AR, but they could rent a boomer and do it.

Berg, do you remember if 589 is air-refuelable?

[Bergman]

Originally posted by PilotKD:

Actually, the Speckled Trout was at the Deid a few months back, right before Christmas if I remember correctly. We had a visit from the Secretery of the Air Force. I wish I had gotten pictures of it because we held short for takeoff right in front of its parking spot. It was not painted like that 135 above though. This one was white on top and polished aluminum on the bottom where the blue is on that 135 above. It also didn't have a boom on it. You could tell there was a boom pod and a place where the boom was, but there was no boom on it.

You are correct, sir. The pic I posted earlier (white/blue -135) was "Casey 01" which the article also referred to. Here is the Speckled Trout:

The pod in the back contains antennas. As Scooter mentioned, that particular -135 never had a boom. You can also see the fuel dump line running from the pod up the underside of the tail right to the very ass end of the jet.

Scooter...I don't think 2589 is receiver A/R capable. To my knowledge, all of the receiver-capable -135s are now R-models.

[ 19. February 2006, 23:00: Message edited by: Bergman ]