Any old US AIR Force sage guys out there?

Me

[eyedigress]

LOL. You had Mr. Top Secret right there. They picked him for good reason.

[jongaltsr]

We used SAGE on the U2 Flights.
I was the voice of “SKY KING” which we operated out of Turkey.
That was the only experience I had with SAGE. The rest was automated and my voice was only used as a time hack to tell pilots where they should make turn if their flight patterns.
I’m sure we used it in Viet Nam but wasn’t involved with it there but there were lots of bombing going on there and the name was mentioned from time to time.

[VaRepublican]

Cmon old timers, keep coming out of the woodwork. I know you folks started the current tech age. It may have passed you by but you were the pioneers. Cmon, talk to me, I’ll repost in the morning. I think your stories are educational, it’s like talking to my gramps.

[VaRepublican]

BTW, my grandpa was cool and very smart. so no offense to anyone.

[B-Chan]

One of the coolest things about SAGE were the operator consoles, each of which came with its own built-in cigarette lighter and ashtray.

There were men in those days...

[Excellence]

My mother worked for a company that made core memory. She brought home some of those little donuts. I had a button/pin that said, “Memory problems? Try cores!” I wore it skating and the man behind the counter called me a “dirty little girl.” I said, “Do you know what cores are?” He said, “no.” So I explained it to him. Man, what a funny memory.

[Excellence]

Your dad held his tongue because he was an honorable man. Please don't hold it against him. It was a different time. Please accept my condolences for your loss.

[353FMG]

DEW line, huh? Do you still feel the musquito bites? Was in Alaska when Eisenhower was to meet with Krushev in Vienna. The latter came late to the conference table. Ike thought it might be a trick so he put all of Alaska on high alert. Can still remember pulling guard duty with a M1 carbine at some JP-4 jet fuel storage tanks @ 55 below buried in a parka while doing the mukluk shuffle.
I was not even a US citizen yet. I thought: ‘Them crazy Americans, trusting their jet fuel to a furner.’ Perhaps they knew it was safe with me.

[Erasmus]

I wore it skating and the man behind the counter called me a “dirty little girl.” I said, “Do you know what cores are?” He said, “no.” So I explained it to him. Man, what a funny memory.

Well, aside from that, was he right?

≤}B^)

[eyedigress]

My Gramps worked at Arnold AFS in TN. Space Stuff.

[Erasmus]

One of my stranger friends from college got his hands on an old core plane.

When he took a computer course at the big U, his run aborted for some reason having to do with a bug in his program.

Now in those days, you punched your program on cards, turned them in at a window, and got your results on wide fanfold paper the next day (along with your card deck).

Commonly, when your program bombed, the printout would contain a bunch of error reporting gibberish that no mere mortal student could understand, but the instructors and their assistants were evidently able to. One of the messages was a “core dump;” i.e., a printout of the relevant contents of memory at the time the program bombed.

So my friend brings his deck and his program-abort printout to class the next day and gets ready to hand it to the instructor. Friend says, “I got this back from the routing room. The printout says something about a ‘core dump.’ Friend opens the folded up printout on instructor’s desk and out fall a small deck of cards and a core plane.

[Liberty Valance]

[eyedigress]

Ya gotta love that wheel.

[thile44]

I worked the SAGE and BUIC systems in the early 60’s. There is a group on Yahoo that has a lot of pictures and information about Radar sites. The URL is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AFRSV/?yguid=247236443
There are a lot of personal photos and stories about live on these sites.

[Martin_1932]

There must still be thousands of us out here that are SAGE veterans. I was in the manual air defense system and on the Pine tree line in British Columbia till 1960. I worked in Maintenance Control and then in the Communications & Electronics Staff. Maintenance Control coordinated down time for all elements in a Sector's area and trouble shot problems among multiple organizations.

Various telephone companies provided voice and data communications, the USAF and RCAF manned the radar and radio sites, USAF and RCAF provided fighter interceptors and manned Bomarc missile interceptors in the NE US and eastern Canada. Originally IBM maintained the AN/FSQ-7 and -8 computers and Blue Suit maintenance took over in the early 1960s. System Development Corp (an out growth of Rand) wrote the computer programs and did program maintenance till the USAF took over that job. All centers originally had self contained diesel generators for power and cooling. The US Army provided air defense with Nike missile sites. It was said that the Army's IFF system was ‘shoot em down, and sort them out on the ground’ LOL.

Most of the 24 SAGE buildings are still standing but at least several have been demolished. Many have been converted to office complexes, the SPADS (Spokane Air Defense Sector), Moses Lake, WA is a data storage facility.

The mission of SAGE as part of the Air Defense Command was to discourage a Soviet bomber attack, and to defend against such an attack if deterrence was not successful. During President John Kennedy's ‘Cuber’ missile crises in Oct 1962, I manned the C & E battle staff position (usually nights as the Chief outranked me) the months we were on high alert.

Many of us enjoyed the assignments to the air defense mission, it may not have been as glamorous as a fighter pilot, but it was on the edge of technology. It was a gold mine for the telephone companies and a pioneer system for interactive computing and later the Internet. It would be interesting to have had your father's perspective on his life in SAGE, perhaps he was in operations where functions were surveillance and directing intercepts.

[VaRepublican]

Wow did this subject prompt you to sign on, thanks for the response and welcome. My dad never said anything I’m 45 years old and just found out he was SAGE.

[ODC-GIRL]

I used SAGE phone lines (in addition to AUTOVON/DSN) at my Air Defense unit back in the 80’s, does that count? :-)

Visited the 24th Air Defense Sector and saw their computer that took up one whole floor of their building, absolutely gigantic. My watch probably has more computing power than it did, but it impressed me. We didn’t get “personal” computers until years later. Our unit ended the Air Defense mission back in 90-91. Picked it up again after 9-11. I couldn’t believe how far technology had come in just 10 years!

[mad_as_he$$]

Many of the old timers took the stern warnings about secrecy seriously. They told me I would be locked away in Leavenworth for the rest of my life if I ever talked about stuff from VN. Didn't for 20 or so years.

Thanks to your family for your dad's service.

[archy]

I wasn't a USAF bluesuiter at the time, but in the 1960s I spent some time as a DOD classified documents courier, making deliveries to, among other units, the USAF's 773rd Radar Squadron at Camp Hero on Montauk Point, Long Island.

Like most such installations, it's long been closed and gutted, but unlike the others, the *big dish* radar antenna is still up, as it's a visual aid to navigation by local boaters.

If you ever get out that way, stop by and say howdy to one of your dad's old [cold] war buddies:

[tom canuk 63]

A trying time always on the edge, but many good men came North to defend American and Canada. They are often remembered by those who served with them and went on to civilian occupations. I have often looked for past brothers in arms but never found a site till today. Served 70 to 72 Sage.