Click logo for Home Page

C-141 Heaven:Another Secret Program

The (Other) Donald

Back in the early 60's Lockheed's farsighted engineers thoughtfully designed the C-141 wing with 'cracks' to enable quick removal of the wings for compact storage below decks of aircraft carriers. But on a rolling carrier deck at sea it was just too time consuming to reattach them before each flight.

Rumsfeld eventually came to his senses, and the program was cancelled.

But by then it was too late. If you've wondered about why the C-141 was painted that horrible gray color, this is the reason. Everything in the Navy is painted gray. (The photo below was of an early test, before this was done to the entire "fleet".) At the start of the COP program the wheels of DoD Procurement began turning and 10,000,000 gallons of gray paint (at a special military price of only $358.27/gallon) had been ordered from Halliburton, on a non-cancellable, no-bid, sole-source contract. Gray was here to stay.

That second C-141 (approaching in the background) was piloted by George Bush.

OFFICIAL US NAVY PHOTO
Before Navy Gray was everywhere

---

After landing he popped out of the crew door
and said "Mission Accomplished!
Where's the O'Club?"
(Note: You don't normally wear a 'brain bucket' on a C-141
but they told him he needed one. It looks empty in this photo.

---

Once he made his way to the officer's ward-room
he did a little 'hanger flying' describing the experience.

---