E-6 Mercury

[Carswell Dude]

On Oct. 1, 1998, The U.S. Navy's fleet of E-6Bs replaced the EC-135 in performing the "Looking Glass" mission flown for over 29 years by the U.S. Air Force. This new mission allows the President and the Secretary of Defense direct command and control capability with America's "nuclear triad" of ballistic nuclear missile submarines, intercontinental nuclear missiles and strategic bombers. With the assumption of this new mission, a battle staff now flies with the TACAMO crew. 
Landing at NAS Fort Worth

[dead link removed by mod]

[maiznblu_757]

Love this bird. Never went a day without seeing them with their armed sentry's guarding them at NAS Pax River.  I have seen these birds do some amazing things.  Like touch down on the 5 board and proceed to lift off again.  The engines are so powerful, that, if ran at full power, would tear the wings off.

[Carswell Dude]

[Rotor]

"The engines are so powerful, that, if ran at full power, would tear the wings off."

You could put a pebble on the wing of a 707 and it would tear the wings off.  Those airframes are older than dirt...  Too bad they look nice, its gonna be sad when they chop them into little bits and make beer cans out of them.

-Mike

[maiznblu_757]

You could put a pebble on the wing of a 707 and it would tear the wings off.  Those airframes are older than dirt...  Too bad they look nice, its gonna be sad when they chop them into little bits and make beer cans out of them.

-Mike

Ummm.. These are relatively new airframes, built in the late 80's and early 90's.  They are also upgrading to glass cockpits thru 2005.  They will be around a long time yet.

[D.Ankovic]

Hello members,

I got the luck to shoot this E-6B Tacamo II,on dep at Ramstein AB on May 7th,and I am looking for the Squadron patch/sticker
of that unit,did somebody have a scan,or point me to the direction where I can find more Infos about it??

thanks

Daniel

[André]

Hi Daniel,

Nice catch.

For the squadron patches : Please check in at Scramble and look for Tinker AFB

http://www.scramble.nl/usn.htm

Both VQ-3 and VQ-4 patches are added.

André

[Erik]

Daniel,

What a catch that is!! Love the second shot - with the white aircraft against the dark, rainy background. 

[Roger]

Love that last shot.  What is this plane used for, I should I not be asking that? 

[D.Ankovic]

Hi members,

@andré thanks to point me there 

@erik,thanks for the flowers

@roger,one of the things I heard about the missions of that Aircraft,is to garantee contact  between submarines and HQ,so I think
it´s a kind of communications plattform,but who knows

greetings Daniel

[Curryballs]

Yeah,  I think the E-6B is now contolled by USSTRATCOMM, and although its original mission was to provide communication between the National Command Authority and the boomers at sea, it now also serves (or has the capability) to serve as an airborne command post that can control the release of the ICBM arsenal.

[Erik]

They replaced the C-130 TACAMO ( Take Charge and Move Out) birds - but I remember reading somewhere that the US Navy was considering an early retirement for the E-6B. I can't remember exactly where though. So it might be false info anyway

[LAshooter]

Ahhh the power of the internet:


http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/infoelect/e6/

[M.M.]

They replaced the C-130 TACAMO ( Take Charge and Move Out) birds - but I remember reading somewhere that the US Navy was considering an early retirement for the E-6B.

Isn't the E-6 one of the aircraft that's to be replaced by the Air Force's all-singing, all-dancing E-10 (767-400)?

E-6s used to come into Vancouver fairly regularly in the mid '90s, on pre-delivery flights.  I'm not sure if they were having specific equipment fitted or if sending them out of the country for a short while was a tax dodge.  (We'd get lots of Boeing airliners for the latter reason -- even a brief stop outside the US somehow saved Boeing's customers many $$$$'s in taxes.)

-M.M.

[KL]

Ahhh the power of the internet:

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/infoelect/e6/

Brings back some of the fond and not-so-fond memories as our company manufacturered and upgraded some of the maintenance trainers seen in the picture 2/3 way down on this Boeing web site, I managed the update of one of the main training equipment a couple of years ago.

Can't talk about the not-so-fond memories as it just gest too ugly ! 

It's an impressive aircraft and technology when I actually got on the first modified E6B a couple of years ago at Boeing, Wichita, it's pretty much all equipment but very little crew comfort, the 5 mile long trailing antenna is towed with the aircraft only slightly above the stall speed to ensure maximum amount of the wire remain vertical to achieve the best penetration of radio waves into the ocean.  There is also an explosive bolt that can be activiated by the cockpit crew should they need to sever the cable in an emergency.

Isn't the E-6 one of the aircraft that's to be replaced by the Air Force's all-singing, all-dancing E-10 (767-400)?

Might be, but US Government have invested and continue to invest a huge amount of funding towards upgrading this aircraft, so it might be a few years yet before any replacement aircraft comes along.