Why am I sending a picture of a C-131 to a F-106 site???? This

aircraft was used in the captive flight development of the GAR 3A/4A

missiles for the 106. The aircraft was bailed to Hughes for this

project. The picture was made summer 1959 over Malibu, CA. The

flight was from the Hughes airstrip in Culver City, CA.

 

A captive GAR-3A is visible on the pylon under the nose. A F-102

radome is on the nose. A modified MG-10 radar from a 102 acted as

surrogate MA-1 for these tests. This configuration was not intended

to launch missiles, captive flight only. A launch test program was

run concurrently at Holloman AFB, using F-106's.

 

Interesting little sidelight, a wide variety of aircraft targets were

desired for the GAR 4A tests, in order to get IR

signatures. Strategic Air Command aircraft were used whenever it

could be arranged. Somewhere during this time some ADC type with

live missiles was running an intercept on a SAC plane, presumably in

SAFE mode. Murphy's law came into play and a missile or missiles

were launched (you may have heard of this from other sources, I don't

have any personal knowledge of the actual facts). ------- As a

result General LeMay, head of SAC, sent out the word "no more captive

runs on us by anybody". No amount of reassurance that the C-131 was

not capable of launching would allow any more SAC targets for it.

 

The C-131 was used for other captive tests, including proximity fuze

tests for the GAR-11/AIM-26.