Brian, indeed. While the V-Force in the 60s was very tightly controlled it also enjoyed top priority for spares etc. Our first 5-day ranger to Offutt stretched out to 4 weeks as we had a succession of tech issues. One was when we had ice in the pitot/static system. Now don't ask me how that happened but it might have been because the Crew Chief wanted more time Stateside.
Rectification was simple. Put aircraft in heated shed, melt ice and blow through. Execution was something else. The Aircraft was fully fuelled and rules would not permit it to be put in the shed lest we had a fuel overflow. Rules also mandated that fuel once delivered could not be returned to POL. The other requirement was to defuel into bowsers. However as SOP all bowsers were full and we had to wait until they had empty bowsers. Unfortunately the weather that caused our problem also prevented aircraft from landing which meant the bowsers remained full and the Looking Glass landed elsewhere.
And so it went on.
Finally we were ready to depart and gave a farewell dinner to the three USAF Majors that had hosted us. During the meal we got the message that we were U/S again; we had a very diligent crew chief. One of the Majors, Ralph Kelly then told us we had to go to bed early as we had an early start. ???? Then he said he would fly us to Vandenburg via March early in the morning returning the next day. We managed to get hold of DetCom "Cherokee Philips" who met us in the car park and dolled out some more green drinking tickets much against his better judgement.
We stopped off at March and that is another story as was our return.
When we got back DetCom was mightily relieved as we were now serviceable and he had been worried having to explain why a fully serviceable nuclear bomber was sitting at SAC HQ without a crew.