COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 17

REAL TIME INTERCEPT
The following story has nothing to do with computers, but I remember it just as if it happened, so read and enjoy, or ignore, as you wish.

While conducting a training exercise at a RADAR station (in 1955 or 56) out in the wilds of one of the Carolinas, we saw (on Radar) a real airplane that was headed our way, from the general direction of Cuba. This was a real life situation, not part of the training exercise we were conducting. Since they had no information about the airplane, and since it wouldn’t answer a radio call, a real fighter plane was scrambled to identify it. It soon became obvious that the plane, and the fighter that was gaining on it, were going to fly right over the RADAR installation.

Several of us, including the Commanding Officer, went outside to watch. The Commanding Officer would watch the air scene, then holler to the controller, what he should do, and do it now. At one point we could see the “bandit” plane make a turn, and it took a little longer than the Commander thought it should, for the aircraft director inside the building to see the airplane make a turn on his Radar screen, then radio the command to the fighter pilot, and for the pilot to change direction. We remember the Commander hollering through the doorway, for the fighter director to, “You … blankity, blank, … get with it!” It turned out the plane was a freighter from a US company, who often ignored the requirements for flight plans, and constantly had to pay stiff fines for their mistakes.

This is the first and only real-time intercept anyone had ever heard about. That is, someone on the ground looking up at the sky, and telling a fighter pilot to turn here and there, to do his job.

I also remember one time at an Air Defense Base that was to protect Washington DC, the training exercise (training the people who watched the RADAR screens) went so badly, the Commanding General got up, and as he walked out of the room said, “I’m going home and dig me a very deep hole in my back yard.” Those were the days when backyard bomb shelters were all the rage.