Where's Rainman to commence the belittling?

 

You could also say that about a lot of stuff that is just admin to some MWSs.

 

The KC-135 and the B-52 -- A match made in the Armageddon of Mutually Assured Destruction!

Some days it just seemed that the Buff was designed to sit in pre-contact behind the KC-135.

 

My first airline was Evergreen. We did our 747 training at United's Training Center, in the same sim (747-200) that the Air Force uses for the E-4B (Looking Glass/NAACP). My Evergreen IP was a retired Air Force E-4B pilot.

One day, we finished early and he told the Instructor Engineer working the sim panel "Hey, bring up the KC-135!" Sure enough, a KC-135R-model pops into view, one mile ahead. I was amazed at the sim detail; it even had the lower TACAN antenna that we used as a visual reference in the F-4.

He taxied in and plugged, took a few thousand pounds, and disconnected.

Knowing my background, he said (with a sly grin) "You've done this a few times....you try it."

At this point, I had somewhere between 700 and 800 air refuelings in the Phantom. I thought to myself "Well, it won't be pretty, but I can get on the boom."

I lost track of how many times I hit the tanker. The big differences were:

1. Throttle lag. The F-4 is turbojet; not much lag. JT-9Ds: lots of lag, and once the behemoth starts moving forward, lots of inertia.

2. Receptacle location. In the F-4, top of the fuselage, roughly over the aerodynamic center. It means when the nose is raised or lowered, the receptacle doesn't really move.

Receptacle in the 747: in front of the windscreen, about 100-120 feet in front of the aerodynamic center. Move the pitch half a degree? The receptacle just moved 1-foot vertically.

3. Inertia. Big airplanes have inertia in pitch, roll, and speed. Once started, hard to stop.

I had watched a KC-10 get refueled by a KC-135A on an ocean crossing once (I was in the F-4). I couldn't believe how much the -10 was moving, and I swear I could see the fuselage flexing.

I never did get a contact. I had a new respect for refueling a heavy.

 

You got it Hacker.

 

ReCALcitrant,

I get your vibe about the "admin" aspect of AR to some airframes, but thats not what the discussion was about, B-52's seem like they are relatively stable behind the tanker. One ex-Buff IP posted a picture of a Buff doing a "whiff" manuever, it looked like he was in a 80 degree bank! Impressive! try doing that same manuever in the C-17 and you'll be in the newspapers the next day.
The conversation was about the difficulty of some airframes in AR not how difficult it is. C-141 = easy, C-17=not so much, B-52=easy I guess. SOLL II not so much, look it up, though Hacker15E may know about it too.
Take Care,
Vito

 

I only have a bit over 1000 hours in the Buff, and I can tell you AR is not easy. Especially when you are on the boom for 20+ minutes to get a 100K onload. For us at least, AR was not admin. With anything else, a good Buff pilot behind the tanker will make it easy, however ask the boomers what a Buff looks like behind the boom on with a brand new Buff AC on upgrade ride #1 trying to hook up.

 

Nope. Your attititude reeks of overconfidence and complacency. Please stay away from my tanker.

 

Appears the autopilot on the tanker kicked off...not sure the AWACS necessarily did anything wrong - hard to tell for sure.

 

Fifty years ago (this month) I was a B-52 Electronics Warfare Officer flying 24 hour 35 minutes Chrome Dome Missions during the Cuban Crisis. We would depart Westover AFB, fly across the Atlantic (no GPS - Celestial Navigation ), find a tanker over Spain, refuel, fly to the eastern Med and orbit for "HOURS" with four nuclear weapons ready for delivery. Departing orbit we would find another tanker over the Med and fly back to Westover. - thee times in ten days. Think about a night in flight refueling with pilots that have flown 65 hours in ten days and have been airborne for almost eighteen hours. Hundreds of missions were flown safely - a tribute to both the tanker and bomber crews.