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Quote:

Originally Posted by F15Cricket (Post 1873854)

Agree with most of what you said. I was never a backseat IP, so I would say getting shot at by Serbian SAMs was a little more scary than getting gas ... BUT, on the other hand, we did take an informal poll in the squadron a couple of weeks into the war (Allied Force, 1999), and the consensus that the most dangerous part of each mission was getting to / from the tanker ... Too many jets around and too many not following the procedures, too often the ATO changed and you didn't know. I remember one night that I rejoined on what was supposed to be my tanker, but it ended up being the wrong tanker in the wrong track--something I figured out after I was on the boom and getting gas! Good on the boomer for getting the mission done.

On another mission (the night Vega 31 went down), when my 3 hour OCA mission turned into a 7.7 hour RESCAP, I once rejoined on a KC-135 ... That was dragging a drogue, so had to go find a proper one with a boom instead!

I had quite a bit of time on the AC and other tanker tracks over the water there.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeF16 (Post 1869017)

it's not that hard.

Are you quoting your wingman? :D

As an ex-B-52 "jock" I can honestly say AR was probably the most difficult maneuver I ever had to learn. Thanks to all those KC guys for their competence and professionalism.

I was once in an F-16 backseat, night, on the boom, exhorting my over-correcting student to let go of the throttle. It's a technique we talked about to make your corrections more deliberate and less nervous. Quite honestly in the viper, once you get on the boom you should make very few throttle corrections, just slowly bumping it up as your jet gets heavier.

Well, he was so stressed out, he let go of the stick instead. Thank God he had a lot of nose down trim in. I didn't know what had happened, except that we rapidly fell off the boom and I took the jet. About 5 minutes later the student finally fessed up to what had caused him to nose dive off the boom.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetjok (Post 1868774)

That sure must be interesting. I wonder what references the B-2 pilots use to maintain their spacing, both vertical and fore/aft? I did a ton of day as well as night AAR's in both the F-100 and the A-10. The F-100 was harder because the refueling probe was in the right wing root and so you aligned with the tanker, a little left of centerline and just drove it in until you either made contact or overran the basket, in which case you'd back out a little and do it again. The A-10 was a piece of cake as the receptacle was in the nose, directly forward to the windshield.

Mostly use references from the tanker. Put the engine in a certain spot in the windscreen, etc. You can always use the director lights too. The boom connects 16 feet behind the nose of the B-2, so you are tucked in pretty close. Plus the B-2 is 69 feet long, so it is short and very pitch sensitive with a very large bow wave. Thrust curve is pretty flat, so what you think is a stable power setting won't be for long. Lots of lift, so any turbulence is compounded.