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