About 1981 we got the call at Plattburgh AFB, NY that one of our FB-111A bombers had an IFE ( In Flight Emergency ) due to an engine failure and had to land at Shaw. Had to have a large group of maintenance personnel from our base to go there. My parents came up for a visit so I was happy for that. Did our weapons thing which wasn't much and helped with an engine change. Once we were done the pilot had to do some maneuvers to test the plane out. He did a low level full swept wing near supersonic pass over Shaw's runway which was way cool as they never did it at our base.
Now getting to what I think is the funny part. FB-111s leaked oil and hydraulic fluid worse than any other plane in the USAF at the time. We used every precaution to prevent fluid spills, large metal drip pans, and plenty of speedy dry. Cleaned up as best we could. Our plane left and we packed it in to return to NY. When our C-130 left we noticed from the air a large brown stain that could be well seen on the huge field of white which never had a plane on it before. It seems that all of the concrete was new as Shaw was only weeks away from getting it's first F-16s.
Thanks, HGC, for sharing your stories.
Your plane christened the new concrete. d:o)