page_title: Strategic Air Command
section_title: Nuclear missiles, aircrew readiness, airborne alert, and strategic reconnaissance
hierarchical_section_title: Strategic Air Command / Nuclear missiles, aircrew readiness, airborne alert, and strategic reconnaissance
context_page_description: Strategic Air Command was both a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force Major Command, responsible for Cold War command and control of two of the three components of the U.S. military's strategic nuclear strike forces, the so-called "nuclear triad", with SAC having control of land-based strategic bomber aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBMs.
  SAC also operated all strategic reconnaissance aircraft, all strategic airborne command post aircraft, and all USAF aerial refueling aircraft, to include those in the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard.
  However, SAC did not operate the KB-50, WB-50 and WB-47 weather reconnaissance aircraft operated through the mid and late 1960s by the Air Weather Service, nor did SAC operate the HC-130 or MC-130 operations aircraft capable of aerial refueling helicopters that were assigned to Tactical Air Command, then Military Airlift Command, and from 1990 onward, those MC-130 aircraft operated by the Air Force Special Operations Command, or any AFRES or ANG tactical aerial refueling aircraft operationally gained by TAC, MAC or AFSOC.
context_section_description: After SAC's 1st Missile Division was activated on 18 March 1957, SAC HQ established the Office of Assistant CINCSAC (SAC MIKE) at the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division in California on 1 January 1958. SAC MIKE was responsible for missile development liaison, the intermediate range Jupiter and Thor missiles having been transferred to SAC for alert in 1958.
  Beginning on 1 February 1958, a SAC Liaison Team was also located at the NORAD Command Post at Ent AFB, Colorado, and the two commands agreed that direct land line communications should connect SAC bases with NORAD's Air Defense Direction Centers.  Also in the late 1950s, SAC continued to enhance its intelligence collection activities and develop innovative means of improving the survivability of its forces to surprise attack.  From 1958–c. 1967, a SAC Detachment (TUSLOG Det 50) operated at Incirlik AB, Turkey, monitoring Soviet missile telemetry from the Kapustin Yar and Tyuratam launch complexes, while in 1959, SAC's Operation Big Star studied, prototyped and evaluated the potential of deploying of Minuteman I ICBMs on civilian railroad tracks via USAF-operated locomotives and trains.
  President Eisenhower approved the first Atlas ICBM launch by a SAC crew for 9 September 1959 at Vandenberg AFB.
  While missile operations continued to ramp up, robust training for flight crews to ensure survivability for strike missions also continued.  In some instances SAC bombers would oppose ADC fighter-interceptors simulating Soviet interceptors.  Conversely, SAC assisted ADC readiness by simulating Soviet bomber threats to the continental United States that ADC fighters would respond to.  However, following a mid-air collision between an ADC F-102 and a SAC B-47 during a 17 December 1959 Quick Kick exercise, simulated NORAD fighter attacks were prohibited against SAC bombers.
  On 18 March 1960, SAC intercontinental missiles began alert at Maine's Snark Missile Launch Complex adjacent to Presque Isle AFB. The following month, on 22 April 1960, SAC turned over the last British-based PGM-17 Thor IRBM to the Royal Air Force. This was soon followed by SAC's first Titan I ICBMs at Lowry AFB's Titan I Missile Complex 1A in Colorado being placed on alert that June.
  Beginning in November 1959, in order to counter Soviet surface-to-air missile threats, SAC began adding low-altitude bombing training for its manned bomber force as an adjunct to its legacy high-altitude training.  Use of low level flight route corridors known as "Oil Burner" routes (later renamed "Olive Branch" routes in the 1970s), and the first of three SAC RBS trains were utilized starting in 1960. On 30 June 1960, SAC had 696 aircraft on alert in the Zone of Interior, also known as the ZI (referred to today as the Continental United States, or CONUS) and at overseas bases.  These 696 aircraft were 113 B-52s, 346 B-47s, 85 KC-135s, and 152 KC-97s.  SAC's Emergency War Order (EWO) required the first aircraft to be airborne within 8 minutes and all aircraft to be airborne within 15 minutes after notification.
  During the mid-1950s, having recalled numerous World War II USAAF and Korean War USAF combat veteran pilots, navigators, bombardiers and aircrewmen from inactive reserve status back to various lengths of active duty, SAC took the lead in integrating the Air Force's reserve components into the overall SAC structure.  By the beginning of the 1960s, SAC had also engineered the assignment of KC-97 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft to Air National Guard groups and wings and having them fall under SAC's operational claimancy.
  On 11 August 1960, President Eisenhower approved the creation of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff (JSTPS), co-located at SAC headquarters at Offutt AFB.) JSTPS also included non-SAC agencies tasked with preparing the Single Integrated Operation Plan, or SIOP, and the National Strategic Target List for nuclear war.
  On 1 July 1960, a SAC RB-47 with a six-man crew was shot down in international airspace over the Barents Sea by a Soviet MiG-19. Four of the crewmen were killed and two surviving c
caption: B-58A Hustler
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