80-1084, Art. #084

Hanging out at Beale AFB, CA

History of 1084

Delivered as TR-1A, April 1986

Crashed on 9 December 1987 at RAF Alconbury, UK. USAF Pilot: Stormy Boudreaux survived.
Stormy recently wrote and here is the story: I was taxiing back to park after a “low sortie”.  A road was being constructed ninety degrees to the taxi-way. A tractor (which had a badly slipping clutch) had been inadvertently left in gear while the tractor’s PTO was being used to run a jack-hammer.  The jack-hammer operation caused the tractors engine to rev-up, eventually the clutch heated up enough to positively engage, and the unmanned tractor was on its way with the jack-hammer operator in trail. I came to a stop when it looked like the tractor was going to pass about 75 to 100 yards in front of me from left to right. But the tractor ran into several piles of gravel and construction debris and gradually it turned directly towards me. Due to the narrowness of the taxiway and the softness of the grass infield, all I could do was watch and communicate my problem to the tower. I shut the throttle off when the tractor was 30 – 40 yards away and obviously not going to miss. Just before the tractor impacted the left wing I released the brakes. The wing was significantly damaged, beyond local repair. So 084 was disassembled and put on board a C-5 and flown back to Palmdale for repairs.

Transferred to 9 SRW, 1988-89

Rebuilt and currently flying with the 9 RW