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Profile – From Stratofreighter to Guppy
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On July 15, 1954, the prototype Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker flew for the first time. After evaluation by the USAF, an initial batch of twenty-nine KC-135A’s were ordered and the first of these was delivered to Castle AFB, California, in June 1957. This jet tanker was designed to replace the piston-engined Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighter tanker which was becoming less and less able, in spite of later jet assistance, to support the newest jet bombers and fighters owing to the limitations of its speed and altitude performance.
The KC-97 thus began to face retirement from first-line service as more and more Stratotankers were delivered. For a while, other uses were found for them. One hundred and thirty-five KC- 97’s reverted to the C-97G pure transport role with the removal of their refuelling equipment, about thirty were covered to interim search and rescue aircraft and designated HC-97G and twenty seven others were changed to C-97K mission support transports by having their rear loading doors closed off, extra cabin tanks removed and a passenger interior installed.
Likewise, the introduction of jet commercial transport aircraft revolutionised civil aviation, cutting short the career of such aircraft as the Lockheed Constellation, Douglas DC-6&7 and, of course, the KC-97’s civil counterpart, the Model 377 Stratocruiser. The major airlines quickly sold them or auctioned them off to smaller operators. Fourteen Stratocruisers auctioned in 1960 brought a price of $105,000, a far cry from the $1. 5 million each that they had cost PanAm in 1945-6. One of the purchasers of surplus Stratocruisers was Lee Mansdorf who came to occupy a key position in Aero Spacelines, first incorporated in Oklahoma in 1961 with Jack Conroy as President and Lloyd Dorsett as Chairman of the Board. Dorsett supplied a large portion of the company’s initial finance.
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