“Looking Glass” and the Airborne Launch Control System

By Ranger Jim Boensch, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, January 31, 2024

An airborne EC-135 over Mount Rushmore. U.S. Air Force photo.

A command post in the sky

Throughout the Cold War, the Strategic Air Command (SAC)'s airborne command post system was meant as a visible deterrent to the Soviet Union. It brought together the latest command, control and communications and elite crews, keeping missile crews, aircrews and the President connected. It gave real meaning to SAC's motto, "Peace is our Profession."

"Looking Glass." The first and best-known SAC Airborne Command Post (ABNCP) was a modified C-135 and its crew, call sign "Looking Glass" — named because it mirrored SAC's underground command post. It first launched on February 3, 1961, beginning almost thirty years of airborne alert, 24/7, over the central United States, with an Air Force general and battle staff aboard.

A chain of aircraft. The system grew into the Post Attack Command Control System (PACCS): a fleet of EC-135s forming an airborne communications chain from Washington, D.C., to every missile field. SAC's airborne posts were part of the Worldwide Airborne Command Post System, with the National Emergency Airborne Command Post and airborne command posts in Europe and over the Atlantic and Pacific. Together they made sure all nuclear forces, including Navy submarines, got their emergency action messages.

Why aloft all the time? With a command post always in the air, an enemy could not cut off nuclear forces from presidential authority just by striking SAC headquarters, Air Force command posts or communication centers.

Launching missiles from the air

By the mid-1960s, more accurate Soviet missiles had made the buried Minuteman launch control centers more vulnerable. SAC's answer was the Airborne Launch Control System (ALCS) — a highly survivable backup way to launch Minuteman missiles, by UHF radio from an aircraft.

• April 17, 1967: first ALCS launch of a Minuteman, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
• Soon after, ALCS went aboard the ABNCP and PACCS aircraft at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, and Minot AFB, North Dakota.
• In peacetime, ALCS crews could reach nuclear-armed missiles only for testing, usually weekly. They could take over launch only if the ground crews had been destroyed or gave them access.
• April 1, 1970: the 4th Airborne Command Control Squadron (4ACCS) formed at Ellsworth, taking the ALCS crews of the 44th Strategic Missile Wing (Ellsworth) and 91st (Minot), as part of Ellsworth's 28th Bomb Wing.

The aircraft of the 4ACCS and the ABNCP aircraft at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, were now the only aircraft in the Air Force able to launch any or all of the nation's 1,000 Minuteman missiles. PACCS mattered so much that in an emergency its planes had take-off priority over nuclear-armed aircraft.

Always ready

Four EC-135s, crewed by the 4ACCS, were always on alert, ready to launch at once:

Crews at Minot usually changed once a week.

Standing down

• July 24, 1990: after 29 years of continuous airborne operations, "Looking Glass" flew its last continuous alert. It moved to random flights on a regular basis, standing ground alert the rest of the time — with the same basic mission.
• 1991: the 4ACCS ended its deployments to Minot in August and began preparing to deactivate the next year. At the end of September, the West Auxiliary and all three ALCC aircraft went off alert, shortly after President Bush took the bomber force and half the missile force off strategic alert.
• June 1, 1992: after 46 years, SAC was deactivated and U.S. Strategic Command activated.
• October 1, 1998: the Air Force's "Looking Glass" mission passed to the Navy's TACAMO ("Take Charge and Move Out") E-6Bs, which replaced the EC-135. The E-6B, fitted with "Looking Glass" equipment, combines Air Force, Navy and Strategic Command nuclear command and control, and flies with a multi-service battle staff led by a general or admiral.

The author credits the mission's success to the men and women who carried it out, and counts "Looking Glass" and its PACCS partners as key to victory in the Cold War.

Sources

Based on "The Strategic Air Command Airborne Command Post System and Its Connection to Minuteman Missiles," by Ranger Jim Boensch, January 31, 2024, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.