C-141 Heaven -- Another Secret Program
This experiment was designed to test the "COP" concept (Carrier Operations Program). As part of "transformation" Donald Rumsfeld (himself a former Navy Pilot) decided all the C-141's would be assigned to the Navy. Bush went along, of course, because his "pappy" was also a Navy pilot, and he'd spent so little time in the AF himself that he forgot that the C-141 was Air Force "territory".
"The Donald"
As it turned out, there was not enough parking on the
carrier's decks to make this program a success. Back in
the early 60's Lockheed's farsighted engineers
thoughtfully designed the C-141 wing with 'cracks' to
enable quick removal of the wings for compact storage
below decks of aircraft carriers. But on a rolling
carrier deck at sea it was just too time consuming to
reattach them before each flight.
Rumsfeld eventually came to his senses, and the program
was cancelled.
But by then it was too late. If you've wondered about
why the C-141 was painted that horrible gray color,
this is the reason. Everything in the Navy is painted
gray. (The photo below was of an early test, before
this was done to the entire "fleet".) At the start of
the COP program the wheels of DoD Procurement began
turning and 10,000,000 gallons of gray paint (at a
special military price of only $358.27/gallon) had been
ordered from Halliburton, on a non-cancellable, no-bid,
sole-source contract. Gray was here to stay.
That second C-141 (approaching in the background) was
piloted by George Bush.
