‘ARIA Control’ – the Aircraft Operations Control Center – at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, 1969.

Note the NASA C-121 Super Constellation parked on the ramp behind the building.

Photo: Bob Burns.

A very early photo of the ARIA AOCC.

Right now Front Left to Right: Major Irv Schubert, Major Ed Knox, Captain Pete Kendrick, Unknown, Unknown, Sgt Tillman.

Back Row, Far Right, is Sgt. Stan Anderson.

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Scan and names: Doc Weaver.

A Simulation at the Aircraft Operations Control Center (ARIA Control), circa 1967.

Major Doc Weaver is on the phone, third from the left in the front row.

In the front row, from left to right:

1.Dave Pine, NASA Goddard Simulation Co-ordinator in the Commander AFETR position, 2. Bob Rutledge, Bendix Field Engineer, 3. Major Doc Weaver, Officer in Charge of the AOCC, 4. Jack Lennox, Mission Coordinator, 5. Pat Rassier, 6. SSgt David Dominguez.

Back row: names to be determined.

There’s a glass panel between the two rows of consoles.

Stan Anderson writes: “I think that the original theory was that the Operations staff would be in the front room and the support staff on the consoles in the rear room. But that made it extremely difficult to pass paper from one console to the next so, when the AOCC was redone in 1968, the Ops Console was set behind and raised above the Support Console with no partition of any kind in between. That way one of the support console people could simply turn around and hand the information or communicate directly to one of the Ops types without having to unplug their headset.”

(Thanks to Stan Anderson, Doc Weaver, Gary Morelock and Bob Burns for the names.)

Photo: Bob Burns.

Major R.C. Doc Weaver, Station Director, ARIA AOCC. Scan: Doc Weaver.

Stan Anderson, Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge of the Aircraft Operations Control Center (ARIA Control) stands at the map.

Seated, left to right: Capt Joe Hill, Major Doc Weaver, Capt Peter Goubert; Lt Col Dave Woodard and Col Oakley Baron.

Scan: Doc Weaver. Names: Stan Anderson.

The Aircraft Operations Control Center (ARIA Control) in 1969.

Stan Anderson is closest to the camera at right. He writes:

“This is the upgraded and reoriented AOCC use for Apollo 8 and later missions.

On the left side, foreground to background is our rear projection screen using either Viewgraphs or computer generated maps, groundtracks, etc. Center left is our aircraft status board which I operated during missions, with red, yellow and green lights to indicate the status of the aircraft and various electronics components on each aircraft. In the rear is the window from our telecom room to pass messages back and forth from NASA and the deployed ARIA.

Next to me is Airman Bruce Brennan [far right] who was my assistant. The civilian talking with me is Tom Crawford. The photo originally appeared in the RCA MTP News, February 1969.”

Scan: Stan Anderson.

The Aircraft Operations Control Center (ARIA Control).

On the left is Mr. James Plaisted, Pan American technical consultant, right is Major David Botto, Chief Architect of the ARIA computer program in support of Apollo.

Scan and text: Doc Weaver.

This photo appears to be “in my opinion, the ARIA flight crew section at the time we got the first ARIA (run by Harry Andonian)” – Bob Mosley.

Front Row
1. Major George Dostil (sp?), Navigator, 2. Major Charlie Hyde, Pilot. 3. Unknown, 4. Unknown, 5. Major Frank Kane, Pilot, 6. Lt. Col. Harry Andonian, 7. Major R.C. Doc Weaver, 8. Jim Fisher, Navigator, 9. Major Dick Smith, 10 Major Don Duran, 11. Navigator – maybe first name Jerry.

Second Row
1. Unknown, 2. Major Alfred G. Hanson (retired as a Four Star General), 3. Unknown, 4. Unknown, 5. Major Bill Weise, 6. Unknown, 7. Unknown – after Apollo went to Kirtland as a test and evaluation engineer. 8. Unknown, 9. Unknown.

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Scan and names: Doc Weaver. Thanks also to Bob Mosley.

Col. Oakley Baron (left) and Lt. Col. Robert L. Mosley at the controls of an ARIA at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, 1969. Photo: Bob Burns.

Lt. Col. Robert L. Mosley and Col. Oakley Baron at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, 1969. Photo: Bob Burns.

Oakley Baron at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, 1969. Photo: Bob Burns.

Bob Mosley in the Aircraft Operations Control Center at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. Photo: Bob Burns.

The electronics crew onboard a Boeing EC-135N ARIA at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, 1969. Photo: Bob Burns.

Visitors from Australia tour the ARIA facility at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida.

Senator Denham Henty, Minister for the Department of Supply (centre) and the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Supply Lloyd Bott (right) are seen here onboard ARIA 374. Senator Henty was Minister for Supply from 26 January 1966 until 28 February 1968. This photo was probably taken during a visit to the US in early February 1968.

At far left is Gary Morelock. Behind Senator Henty is the HF Communications station and SSgt Cooper is seated at the console.

Scan by Ken Sheridan, with thanks to Michael Bott for the photo and Gary Morelock for the ID.

At Patrick Air Force Base, Senator Denham Henty, Minister for the Department of Supply (centre) and the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Supply Lloyd Bott (right) are shown the ARIA base.

Left to right: Col. Robert Cobb, the Deputy Commander of the Air Force
Eastern Test Range, ??, Senator Denham Henty and Mrs Henty, Jack Dowling (an Australian who was Station Director at MILA, the Merritt Island Tracking Station), ? Mrs Dowling?, Col. Oakley Baron.

Scan by Ken Sheridan, with thanks to Michael Bott.

Gene Cernan and Tom Stafford with the ARIA crew at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida.

???, Major Arrellano, ???, Gene Cernan, Tom Stafford, Major Regan, Lt Col. Frank Pangallo, Lt Col David Woodward, Lt Col Robert Mosley, Col Oakley Baron, Major Richard Smith and SSgt Stan Anderson. The occasion for the meeting in April 1969
was to work out Apollo – ARIA communications issues prior to the Apollo 10 mission.

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Scan: Colin Mackellar, with thanks to Bob Mosley for the photo and Stan Anderson for the names.

Gene Cernan, Tom Stafford, Bob Mosley and Oakley Baron.

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Scan: Colin Mackellar, with thanks to Bob Mosley.

Bob Mosley and Tom Stafford outside the AOCC.

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Scan: Colin Mackellar, with thanks to Bob Mosley.

Sgt Peter Collins manning the Collins ‘Scope’ radio setup at 1958 Comm Sq., Andersen AFB, Guam.

Andersen AFB, Guam, along with Wheeler AFB in Hawaii and the Overseas Telecommunications Commion in Sydney, were the main HF relay stations for ARIA in the Pacific.

Pete Collins writes,

“Scope Control was part of the presidential communication support mission and was based out of Andrews AFB, MD (2045 Comm Gp.)

A single operator could configure and manage multiple HF sideband pathways along with associated quieting and patch capability. Such was the case for Apollo 14 wherein a quality downlink routed data from ARIA, through Guam on into Mission Control. It was a very proud moment when we were told that we provided key moments of clear signal.”

(There’s a recent photo of Pete here.)