Welcome to This Date in Aviation History, getting you caught up on milestones and important historical events in aviation through February.
February 3, 1961 – The US Air Force Strategic Air Command commences Operation Looking Glass. During the Cold War, Russia and the US stood face to face, often on the brink of nuclear war. Perhaps the greatest fear on both sides was that the one would launch a surprise nuclear attack and the other would be unable to respond following the destruction of their command and control assets. In response to that possible scenario, the
US Air Force Strategic Air Command initiated Operation Looking Glass, which ensured that a command and control aircraft was in the air 24 hours a day, 365 day a year, and that the crew of that aircraft would be able to launch American missiles if groundbased crews had been incapacitated or killed. When Looking Glass first commenced its round-the-clock flights, it was based at Offutt AFB in Nebraska, and over the years its basing has rotated. Crews flew in the Boeing EC- 135, a highly modified version of the C-135 Stratolifter transport aircraft. The crew consisted of two pilots, a refueling specialist, and approximately 20 other personnel to operate the communications equipment on board. But the most important person on those flights was the flag officer— either an Air Force general officer or a Navy admiral— who had the authority to order a launch of American missiles if the need arose. The mission was named Looking Glass because the mission mirrors the capability of the ground based command and control facilities, and it had the communications gear necessary to contact US missile sites to command a launch, and if those sites were unable to respond, the missiles could be launched from the air. Looking Glass could also communicate with submerged nuclear submarines by extending a 2.5 mile long trailing wire antenna that could still communicate following a nuclear attack by using the Survivable Low Frequency Communications System. This allowed the officer on board the EC-135 to issue Emergency Action Messages to American submarines and order the launch of their missiles. At Defcon 2 or higher, meaning that nuclear war was the next step or that an attack was imminent, the Looking Glass pilots were required to wear an eye patch over one eye. If a nuclear explosion took place near enough to blind them with the flash, then they still had