lookin for info for the old DCC

[squirrells]

Hey looking for info on two birds for one of our Crew Chiefs who used to crew these girls the tail numbers are 63-7799 and 63-7860 any help would be appreciated.

[Lkuest]

I know both aircraft retired out of the 62nd at Little Rock. 7860 had an early retirement. It sat for several years with wing cracks so large you could see them from the ground looking up. There was a long debate as to if it was worth repairing wing cracks so severe. I dropped the inboard engines as an A1C so the cracks could be evaluated and repaired. Later, the center wing box retirement hours became more stringent, so we decided to leave the wings alone and just fly it out to the boneyard. I installed the engines as a SSgt, and it retired within a month after that.

I know 7860 had a special mod that put two extra HF wires on top of the plane, totalling four. I never saw the extra two installed, just the attachment points on top of the wings. I was told it was for a special Vietnam communication mission.

I don't remember much about 7799, just that I worked it sproadically, so it must have been a decent flier. We went through so many aircraft on their way to retirement that it's hard to keep all the tails straight. Especially when we had 7799, 7879, 7899, 7767, 7877, etc..

7860 was memorable though. It sat on the ramp for years with only 2 engines, and once had to cannibalize oil filters off of it to fix another airplane. After we put it back together, it took a solid week to get all the engines started. On the first successful engine run, we got a fire light indication. Apparently, it took a while for the plane to wake up.