Former KC-135 pilot reminisces about plane's glory days

  • Published
  • By Brandice J. Armstrong
  • Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFPN) --  Retired Lt. Col. Bill Fisher has lived a story that only a few can tell -- he was among the first Air Force pilots to fly the KC-135 Stratotanker.

As Tinker Air Force Base prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the KC-135's maiden flight, Colonel Fisher reminisced about the glory days.

"I was always proud to fly that machine," said the Norman, Okla., resident. "It was a safe airplane."

The colonel's KC-135 career began four years after graduating from the University of Tulsa as a second lieutenant, when he was transferred to KC-135 school at Castle AFB, Calif. Before the KC-135, he had co-piloted KB-29 Prop Tankers and B-25 bombers.

It was fall 1957. The Stratotanker had only been introduced to the Air Force that June.

In February 1958, an issue of the Fairchild Times in Washington printed, "The First KC-135 Will Arrive Today; Named 'Queen of Inland Empire.'" The article began, "Today starts another chapter in the history of Fairchild Air Force Base and the 92nd Bomb Wing.

Today the wing gets its first KC-135 Stratotanker. The 250,000-pound, four jet-engine refueling tanker is scheduled to touch down here approximately around 2 p.m."
 
"(The KC-135) was just coming off the assembly line and these B-29s were worn out," Colonel Fisher said. "After flying the B-29, (the KC-135) was like climbing into a Cadillac.  It was a marvelous machine."

The colonel's KC-135 career continued to 1973. During that time, he graduated from co-piloting to piloting. He moved up the ranks, aided younger pilots, saw the world and spent the better part of three years in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. 

Colonel Fisher, who retired from the Air Force in 1977, said he also witnessed updates to the aircraft instrumentation. The first airplanes had round dials, which changed to the airline standard flight director systems in 1970.

"It turned instrument flying from work to fun," Mr. Fisher said. "It was really a marvelous piece of equipment.

"I had to almost order some of my pilots to use it because they were used to the old round dials and that was good enough for them, but now you could program two moves in advance," he said. 

(Courtesy Air Force Materiel Command News Service)