A Day in the life of a Boom Operator...Part 2- The PICS!!!

That banked B-52 refuel looks suitably terrifying. I'm always surprised how stable such large aircraft can be, even during maneuvers that just look wrong for the mass involved.

And we definitely need to get an ATS A/C Discusser's convention going on. I hear Nellis is nice this time of year.

reply to post by Darkpr0


I was trying to get out that way in July for Red Flag but they cancelled it. Maybe for 14-1 in October.

Originally posted by boomer135


AN/AAQ-33. SNIPER pod.

It is for sure not a AN/AAQ-33 SNIPER pod.
Lockheed Martin SNIPER XR

There are photos of it all over the place, the equipment is sold globally to allies, etc.

Now, the reason I said the pod was a ALQ-188 variant was because of it's appearance. They are virtually identical in appearance aside of the red paint. All of the small details are paralleled very well.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by boomer135

 

Since you're doing bombers, I'm going to hijack your thread for a little video fun.

Ten aircraft B-52 MITO from Minot.

I can imagine the comms. lol

"Two's in"
'Three's in"
"Four's in"
"Five's in"
"Six is in"
"Seven is in"
"Seven, no #, Eights in"
"# nine's in"
"Ten's lagging but we will make it"



Only reason for the 30 second intervals is to clear the exhaust from them! HAHAHA!

In all serious, we used to do this all the time with the buff's from minot when I was at grand forks. Eight bombers and eight tankers would take off minimums. It's a cool sight to see and a great show of force. We called it SIOP/8044

Originally posted by muzzleflash

Originally posted by boomer135


AN/AAQ-33. SNIPER pod.

It is for sure not a AN/AAQ-33 SNIPER pod.
Lockheed Martin SNIPER XR

There are photos of it all over the place, the equipment is sold globally to allies, etc.

Now, the reason I said the pod was a ALQ-188 variant was because of it's appearance. They are virtually identical in appearance aside of the red paint. All of the small details are paralleled very well.

Well your entitled to your opinion but I've never seen an F-16 carry an ALQ-188 under a wing. 99 percent of the time it's carried under the fuselage of the aircraft. And considering the phone call I got about the SNIPER pod being in the photo, I'll tend to go with what I know it was to be. In this particular photo, there's a cover over the front of the pod, as it was just for wing load testing for the jet. Before then the BONE carried it. Also while it is now sold around the world to our allies, these photos were taken back in the early 2000's so keep that in mind. The ALQ-188 is no small pod either!

Originally posted by boomer135


Well your entitled to your opinion but I've never seen an F-16 carry an ALQ-188 under a wing. 99 percent of the time it's carried under the fuselage of the aircraft. And considering the phone call I got about the SNIPER pod being in the photo, I'll tend to go with what I know it was to be. In this particular photo, there's a cover over the front of the pod, as it was just for wing load testing for the jet. Before then the BONE carried it. Also while it is now sold around the world to our allies, these photos were taken back in the early 2000's so keep that in mind. The ALQ-188 is no small pod either!

Freudian slip?

You never seen it under the wing? Except that "99% of the time" it's not under the wing.
Aha, there is that 1%. That's why our F-16 is "Special".

It's not your fault.
No one would have ever noticed except me, the Russians, the Chinese, and every other military in the world who has the WWW.

But why outdated ECM tech is so closely classified beats me. If I have seen it, than it's obsolete in terms of the prototypes being tested currently in the field.

And that's not a cover on the front of the pod, that's the pod's exterior itself.

It's not an opinion, it's an observation of specific facts.
I even gave links and terminology so anyone could look it up and see for themselves and compare.

It's really a silly and shallow thing to keep secret when you think about it.
Those DIA suits are trippin.

I'll assume you would have U-2 pics as well but for some reason this 1955 aircraft model (or rather its highly updated variants) is classified and runs mostly classified ops still.

Guys at least send him a copy of my file earlier on in the game.
That way he knows not to respond next time.

The plane you have as a VC-25 looks like the E4-B. Just behind the boom it looks like the big black radar. Also if my I'm not mistaken I think all the VC's have blue noses and only the E-4 has a white nose, not 100% though as I have never personally worked on a VC. Great pics!

Wow!! These are amazing! Star, flag and I'm subscribing to this thread. I didn't think I'd find it interesting and I LOVED it. Thanks for posting them and for the work you do!!!!

Now all we need is a Finance Troop day in the life.... With pictures.

Your story about your NDA makes me laugh. I've signed two so far in my short time in the Air Force. "100 years of STFU about it whatever you see".

When I saw all these pictures I was like, oh man, someone is about to get ripped, but then someone asked you about releasing these photos and I saw "I'm not in the Air Force anymore". Also gave me a chuckle.

Thanks for your service, and interesting photos.

reply to post by boomer135


My farther worked on water burners when MITO was 15 seconds. He used to tell me crews were briefed if you had to abort, DO NOT STOP on the runway. By the time number three was rolling no one knew if they had gotten airborne until they climbed over the smoke.

reply to post by muzzleflash


The U-2 hadn't been classified since the 60s. The only reason we put them in a hangar was to protect them from wind and elements. I used to have some great pics of them going through. Even had some God ones of the cats eye region pod they tested on it.

There were six airframes modified for refueling, but it was only used on one or yeti missions.

Guzzle, guzzle, guzzle!

I don't know anything about this stuff. Nice pictures though.

Originally posted by Zaphod58

The U-2 hadn't been classified since the 60s.

Maybe you mean the air frame itself. I meant the equipment inside of the current operating ones. And the missions they perform obviously are classified because they are spies.

Here is the wiki info claiming they are extending the U-2 service till 2023:

Upgrades late in the War in Afghanistan gave the U-2 greater reconnaissance and threat-detection capability.[44] As of early 2010, U-2s from the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron have flown over 200 missions in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom; as well as Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa.[45]

A U-2 was stationed in Cyprus in March 2011 to help in the enforcement of the no-fly zone over Libya,[46] and a U-2 stationed at Osan Air Base in South Korea was used to provide imagery of the Japanese nuclear reactor damaged by the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.[47]

In March 2011, it was projected that the U.S.'s fleet of 32 U-2s would be operated until 2015. The Obama administration requested $91 million to maintain the U-2 program.[48] In 2011, the Air Force intended to replace the U-2s with RQ-4s before fiscal year 2015. Proposed legislation would require that its replacement have lower operating costs before the U-2 could be retired.[41] In January 2012, it was reported that Air Force plans to end the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 program and extend the U-2 fleet in service until c. 2023.[49][50]

So these jets will continue to get upgrades for the foreseeable future. And there will still be a lot of classifications surrounding their operations and their equipment.

And yes with these types of global sorties I would have to say they are probably doing in-flight refueling and I am not allowed to have pics of it because it is so secret it never even happened.

reply to post by muzzleflash


No, they actually aren't. They found that in flight refueling extended mission times too long for the pilots. IFR extended missions out to 14 hours, which is too long for the pilots. Coming back from missions that long was wearing them out so they weren't able to fly for several days. They aren't flying long distance missions, because they depart from bases in theater near their target areas. The average mission length for the U-2 is about 8 hours or so.

As for the equipment a lot of it is publicly available to find, if you know the right places to look. Some of it is classified, and the areas they operate is classified, but quite a bit of information is out there in the right places.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I don't know about that.

The B-2 Spirit can do 10k miles with a refueling, while the U-2 can't reach that range after refueling according to what information I looked at. Both are sub-sonic jets, so they are slow.

14 hours is not a reasonable excuse when on the other hand, we are claiming we have a 24 hour reaction speed with our B-2s and can hit anywhere globally with them. (By using in flight refueling).

Since they only have 2 pilots either they train to stay up a whole day (common practice), they trade positions (possible), or they use auto pilot for large legs of the trip (also possible).

I am totally unconvinced by the "reasons" for such a policy. So forgive me for thinking it's just a secret rather than a logical explanation.

reply to post by muzzleflash


Apples and oranges. The B-2 can do 40+ hour missions, with a cot in the back of the cockpit so the pilots can go lay down and sleep during the mission, while the other remains awake monitoring the aircraft.

The U-2 is stretching things at 8 hours because you're in a cramped cockpit you can barely move in to begin with, wearing a space suit that makes it even more cramped (it takes two hours to suit up, and they have to have someone walk out with them carrying an air conditioning unit just walking out to the aircraft), flying a plane that has a 15 knot difference between stall, and overspeed (which leads to breaking up in flight). Add to that the fact that after landing U-2 pilots suffer from a condition in their lungs caused by the high altitudes (that they're seeing in F-22 pilots now as well) that takes time to recover from, and you have two aircraft that are so completely different that it's not even funny and can't even begin to be compared.

The B-2 uses three pilots when doing its "around the world" missions, two always in the seats and one sleeping in the cot. I'm not sure the exact time frame but both B-2 pilots have to be awake and cognitive for a certain time frame before a potential bombing or if given a nuclear order, so, in essence two pilots have to continuously be awake at all times.

U-2 pilots have to breathe 100% oxygen I believe starting two hours before every flight they make because of the altitude they fly at.

Oh and no we don't refuel U-2's anymore. that pilot program ended years before my time.

reply to post by boomer135


It's actually about three or four hours. It takes about two and a half hours to get suited up. They let me watch when the NASA WB-57 came through, and it's a really long process, but it was pretty interesting (they use the same suit as the U-2 does).