AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 252 / 306

Plate 252 of 306 · Cold War · Strategic jet transport

Lockheed C-141C Starlifter

C-141C 66-0177 ‘Hanoi Taxi’, painted as C-141C 66-0177, ‘Hanoi Taxi’, built as a C-141A, stretched to C-141B and upgraded to C-141C, which on 12 February 1973 flew the first freed American prisoners of war out of Hanoi in Operation Homecoming, made the last Starlifter flight in May 2006 and is displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio: a four-engined strategic jet transport with a long circular-section fuselage, a high wing swept at 25 degrees with marked anhedral carrying four Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofans in pods on pylons, a T-tail with a bullet fairing on top of the fin, main wheels in sponsons on the fuselage sides, a refuelling-receptacle fairing above the flight deck and clamshell doors and a ramp under the upswept tail: white upper fuselage and fin over light grey, divided by a thin dark blue cheatline, a black radome, ‘U.S. AIR FORCE’ in dark blue behind the flight deck, a yellow ‘0177’ hexagon and ‘445 AW’ under the windscreen, ‘FIRST C-141 TO HANOI’ above the port crew door with the 4th Allied P.O.W. Wing badge, the star-and-bar on the rear fuselage and a gold-edged dark blue fin band with ‘AFRC’ under the US flag and above ‘60177’, as photographed at Dayton (no C-141 is preserved in a UK museum; shape from a Lockheed C-141A three-view with the C-141B’s two fuselage plugs added; the doors are shown closed and the small stencils are left off).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as C-141C 66-0177, ‘Hanoi Taxi’, built as a C-141A, stretched to C-141B and upgraded to C-141C, which on 12 February 1973 flew the first freed American prisoners of war out of Hanoi in Operation Homecoming, made the last Starlifter flight in May 2006 and is displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio: a four-engined strategic jet transport with a long circular-section fuselage, a high wing swept at 25 degrees with marked anhedral carrying four Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofans in pods on pylons, a T-tail with a bullet fairing on top of the fin, main wheels in sponsons on the fuselage sides, a refuelling-receptacle fairing above the flight deck and clamshell doors and a ramp under the upswept tail: white upper fuselage and fin over light grey, divided by a thin dark blue cheatline, a black radome, ‘U.S. AIR FORCE’ in dark blue behind the flight deck, a yellow ‘0177’ hexagon and ‘445 AW’ under the windscreen, ‘FIRST C-141 TO HANOI’ above the port crew door with the 4th Allied P.O.W. Wing badge, the star-and-bar on the rear fuselage and a gold-edged dark blue fin band with ‘AFRC’ under the US flag and above ‘60177’, as photographed at Dayton (no C-141 is preserved in a UK museum; shape from a Lockheed C-141A three-view with the C-141B’s two fuselage plugs added; the doors are shown closed and the small stencils are left off). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.8 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (C-141A, B & C); engine, crew and dimensions are for the C-141C 66-0177 ‘Hanoi Taxi’ modelled here.

History

The C-141C ‘Hanoi Taxi’

At the start of the 1960s the US Air Force’s Military Air Transport Service still flew piston-engined Douglas C-124s and C-133s across the world. In 1961 it asked for a jet to carry troops and freight over intercontinental ranges, and Lockheed’s Georgia division won with the C-141: a high-winged, T-tailed jet with four turbofans, its main wheels in fairings on the fuselage sides, and a floor at truck-bed height behind clamshell doors and a ramp, so it could be loaded straight from the ground. It was designed to commercial standards and was the first jet built from the outset as a military freighter.

The first C-141A flew from Marietta on 17 December 1963, sixty years to the day after the Wright brothers’ first flight, and the type entered service in April 1965. Starlifters soon carried men and supplies across the Pacific to Vietnam and flew wounded home, and 285 were built. They tended to fill their floor space before reaching their weight limit, so from 1977 to 1982 Lockheed stretched 270 of them into C-141Bs with two fuselage plugs adding 7.1 m, and gave them an air-refuelling receptacle above the flight deck, which the A had lacked.

The C-141B carried much of the airlift in the 1991 Gulf War. In the late 1990s 63 were upgraded to C-141Cs with glass cockpits, GPS and defensive systems for the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard, and they flew on as the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III replaced the rest. The last Starlifter left service in May 2006. Several are preserved in American museums, but none is in a UK museum.

This airframe

C-141C 66-0177 ‘Hanoi Taxi’

66-0177The airframe modelled

66-0177 was delivered as a C-141A in 1967. On 12 February 1973, in Operation Homecoming, it landed at Gia Lam airport, Hanoi, and flew 40 freed prisoners of war to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, the first of them to leave North Vietnam. It was later stretched to a C-141B and upgraded to a C-141C, and spent its last years with the Air Force Reserve’s 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson, Ohio. In 2004 it carried former prisoners on a commemorative flight, and on 6 May 2006 it flew to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, the last Starlifter to leave service. The model shows it as displayed there: white upper fuselage and fin over light grey, a thin dark blue cheatline, a black radome, ‘U.S. AIR FORCE’ behind the flight deck, the 445th’s yellow ‘0177’ hexagon under the windscreen, ‘FIRST C-141 TO HANOI’ and the 4th Allied P.O.W. Wing badge by the port crew door, the star-and-bar on the rear fuselage, and the flag above a gold-edged dark blue ‘AFRC’ band and ‘60177’ on the fin. Its shape comes from a Lockheed C-141A three-view with the C-141B’s two fuselage plugs added; the doors are shown closed, and the small stencils, which photographs do not make legible, are left off.

Where to see one

Not on charge

C-141C 66-0177 ‘Hanoi Taxi’, which brought home American prisoners of war from Hanoi in 1973, is at the National Museum of the US Air Force. None is in a UK museum.

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Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.