Hot Refueling Exercises?

I don't know what to think of this, don't even know what category it belongs in but I wanted to throw it out there.

Hot refueling is very dangerous and yet they are doing it right this minute on the outer edge of our airport in here in my city. Normally, this type of thing is kept up north at Grissom or south of me at Atterbury. The airport claims no knowledge of it even though you can drive right to the edge of the property and watch. Local fire and EMS also admit it's going on but give no details. The helicopters are not LEO, news, Lifeline, or obvious military.

In the past 2 months, we've had a huge increase in "test incidents" as well as the damn copters running drills at night, right overhead here in the 'burbs.

I don't want to be paranoid but what might be going on here?

reply to post by stormy46237

The helicopters are not LEO, news, Lifeline, or obvious military.

Just what kind of helicopters are they then?

Can you get a pic?

reply to post by stormy46237


Military aircraft "hot pump" all of the time. They do what is called a "hot pump crew switch" where the plane lands, they shut down one engine and start refueling while the old aircrew gets out and a new aircrew takes over. This is common in drills to save time, because if the aircraft is shut down they will have to go through the entire start-up procedure again.

reply to post by stormy46237

Just a heads up, I've been an aircraft mechanic for over 10yrs in the Air Force and Air National Guard and while "Hot Refueling" is more dangerous than normal refueling, it is a very common practice that's done often with aircraft that are used in emergencies or immediate response such as military, medical and police. This training needs to be complied with often to stay current with qualifications.

reply to post by OptimusSubprime


You are very correct! We also used the term ERCC (Engine Running Crew Change) for this type of crew action.

Thanks for your responses. I know the reasons for hot fueling it's just not something that normally happens at that location. Seemed a little weird, especially since IND denied it even though it was on their property. Nothing was going on in the area at the time that would have required this service for law enforcement or EMS. Military usually doesn't show up out at IND for much of anything unless we've got someone important in town.

I guess hot fueling as stated is a concern because of the safety issue, but if no-one wants to talk about it do what I would do, watch what direction they depart and start heading that way, keep doing this over the course of a few days and you should be able to figure it out.

I have do this in the past and learned that the helicopters I kept seeing were Medical, they change there location and started to land near their new station.

Good luck let us know what you find