STORIES PG 4

This story happened in late 1979. I had upgraded to Missile Combat Crew Commander in the 564th SMS at Malmstrom AFB, Montana that summer. Sparky was my first deputy, fresh out of Vandenberg. I was lucky to get him, he was a real fine crew dog and a nice guy. Here’s how he became one of those classic legends of crew life, a real piece of missile lore - and every word of it is true. This one’s for you, Sparky, wherever you are!

Sparky was a typical cool California Kid from San Diego. Despite being a bit laid back, he was a solid, straight guy who had done well at Vandenberg and was shaping up into a good crewman. He got along well with people and everybody liked him. He even bore an uncanny resemblance to the actor Anthony Edwards who played ‘Goose’ in the movie Top Gun.

Sparky and I were at Papa one time, when he got bored with the routine in the wee hours of the morning and kept dozing off while I was on my sleep shift. To help stay awake, he decided to study the “supplemental training materials” - actually a fine collection of Playboy, Penthouse, and Oui magazines - that crews kept hidden in a blank drawer of the Medium Frequency radio rack. Sparky figured that one way or another, he would stay up. But in his half-awake state, he grabbed the wrong set of handles on the rack. Instead of opening the blank drawer, he actually opened the radio frequency amplifier drawer. And as luck would have it, he picked the worst possible moment. Just as the drawer separated from it's connections at the rear, the radio hit it's transmit cycle, sending a powerful surge of high voltage electricity through the system. The arcing caused a small fire and some smoke.

Sparky jumped back and yelped, although I did not hear it. The first I knew of the incident was when Sparky ran around to the bunk and started slapping the curtain, yelling something like “Wake up Mike, I really screwed up this time!”

I was instantly awake. I threw open the curtain and pulled on my pants, then hurried around to the Deputy's Console, where Sparky had regained enough composure to open his T.O. to the ‘LCC Electrical Fire or Overheat’ checklist. There was a smell of burnt wiring in the air, but the smoke itself had already dissipated in the rapid airflow.

Already, transmission failure printouts were starting to come in from some of Papa's LF's. I knew that in order to prevent further arcing I would have to open the big MF radio transmitter circuit breaker located on the 32 volt battery charger near the bunk. But I also knew that Sparky was still a little rattled, and I myself had been sound asleep less than a minute ago. I saw that there were no open flames or large volumes of smoke, so this did not appear to be an immediate life threatening situation. I elected to follow the checklist step by step, knowing that good checklist discipline would save us from mistakes caused by foggy, sleepy brains. I figured that there had already been enough of that for one night.

We ran the checklist together, performing each step as applicable. It directed us to Table 4-2, which was several pages long and listed every circuit breaker in the LCC. It did indeed tell us to open the MF radio transmitter circuit breaker, as I knew it would. I briskly went around to the 32 volt battery charger and opened the breaker. This was actually one of the biggest breakers in the capsule, being a rotating lever almost a foot long. It looked like the speed controls on the transformer of the electric train set I had as a boy. That done, I rejoined Sparky at the Deputy's console to complete the checklist.

The only things left to do on the fire checklist were to see if the fire was out (it was), close cooling air dampers if required (only if the fire was still burning), apply fire extinguishers if needed (they weren't), realign the squadron, and make the reports to Job Control and WCP. But now that the circuit breaker was open, there were some more fault indications to contend with. We finished running the fault procedures in a couple of minutes, and satisfied ourselves that all indications were as expected.

It was time to call the crew at our Squadron Command Post, Tango. I explained that the MF radio had apparently shorted out and we had to open the circuit breaker. Tango got the rest of the squadron up on the Hardened Voice Channel (HVC) and realigned the squadron to make sure that all of the missiles were properly monitored. Since HVC was like an old-style telephone party line, I didn’t tell the whole story just yet.

I knew I had to get to the bottom of this fast, so I went to the rear of the capsule and poured a cup of coffee. Besides, I was too keyed up to go back to sleep now. I got my cigarettes and stepped over to the Deputy's console where Sparky was still sitting, staring straight ahead with a look of disbelief and disappointment on his face. I shook the pack towards him in the old sociable gesture of offering a smoke to a buddy.

“Thanks, Mike,” Sparky said as he accepted the offer. I took out a cigarette for myself, tapping the end smartly against my Zippo a couple of times before putting it in my mouth and lighting it. Then I leaned over to light Sparky's cigarette. Both of us inhaled deeply, letting the rich smoke of the unfiltered Camel have it's calming effect.

I broke the silence, “Wanna tell me what happened?”

“Not much to tell, Mike,” Sparky began. “I was reading the monthly weapon system training package, and kept nodding off. I figured I needed a break, and thought glancing through a Playboy would help. I reached to open the drawer, but I must have been more tired than I thought. I guess I grabbed the wrong drawer and opened it. Damn, I'm real sorry about that! It was really stupid.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s it,” answered Sparky. Then he added quietly, “What do you think they'll do to me?” The enormity of his screw-up was beginning to sink in.

“I don't know.”

I was beginning to wonder about that myself, and about how badly we both might get hurt by this. Missile duty made you paranoid about things like that. But one thing I believed is that we were a crew, and we would face things together. I knew that I would do everything I could to help Sparky.

“You have a couple of things going for you,” I told him. “First, you have a good record and a reputation for being a smart, competent crewman. I'll vouch for that. Second, people like you. Third, you're just a second lieutenant, so you have plenty of time to recover.”

Sparky managed a laugh, “Gee, at last I've found something good about being a butterbar!”

“Right,” I said. “Look, people are going to ask what I did to you for this. You know what you did wrong. If you have trouble staying awake, get me up. I don’t think you’ll do anything like this again, and you’re likely to be very careful in the future. So if anybody asks, you've been counseled on the matter by me. Got it?”

“Got it, Mike.”

“O.K. I'm going to tell Tango what happened. They and the squadron commander will have to hear the full story. But I'll try to keep my reports to WCP and Job Control to a minimum.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

I sent Sparky to bed, then called Tango on phone so that I could relay the truth in private. After that I called WCP and Job, and made the log entries.

Inevitably, word of the incident got around. There was a lot of kidding about it, but Sparky took it in good humor. After a while, he didn’t even mind being called ‘Sparky.’ Eventually, he made to the Standboard shop. They didn’t even dock his pay for the quarter million dollars in damages.

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