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

reply to post by boomer135


The -135 has a drogue on it. Post more of the pic, and I can tell you exactly what spots they're sitting on. It should be the AMC ramp, but there's not enough there to tell exactly which spots those are.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Here you go. Same spot with a C-17 as well for comparison



And way out a bit...




Incidently, when BRAC got rid of Grand Forks for tankers, we sent a bunch of people to Hickam and started an active duty squadron or two to go along with the HIANG guys. I probably would have ended up there if I stayed in...

reply to post by boomer135


IIRC, that's 20A/B for the C-17 and C-5, and 21B for the -135. The row in front of the tower was 17 row, the row that goes parallel to the AMC ramp sort of behind the tower is 19 row, 15 and 16 are in front of the AMC terminal (16 row goes in front of the terminal, parallel to 17 row, 15 row points at the terminal). The three parked perpendicular to the AMC ramp are on 18 row.

Check this out, for a war that's supposed to be winding down, we sure do have alot of crap still on the ramp and the deid!





Back tracked a little to 2012 and looky looky what I found....




Besides Zaphod (!) can anyone guess what this plane is and what it's mission is? without wikipedia? lol

Another shot of the Deid...

reply to post by boomer135


Oh come on! You're no fun damnit!

reply to post by Zaphod58

RC-135S COBRA BALL. I have occasionally seen those at Edwards.

reply to post by Shadowhawk


ah man should have left you out of the game too! lol

Correcto!

COBRA BALL

You may all ask yourselves why is the right wing and engine painted black? Well back in the day they were painted black to reduce the glare on the optics the plane had. COBRA BALL was designed to track balastic missile launches, and still is today. However, the only reason that the plane has a black wing to this day is simply the unit's pride and tradition. Optics have came a long way since the Cold War, so tradition was honored to keep the one wing black.

Even still, anyone want to venture a guess as to what it's doing in the middle east? lol

Also, Zaphod, your inquiry into KAL 007 might find it's way into the realm of the COBRA BALL if you know where to look. There may have been one in the air that night...

KAL007 and COBRA BALL

Here's a small collection of tanker patches I've found on various sites and some from my collection. It's by no means complete, but it's a small start. I have some that are doubles from when squadrons changed from AREFS to ARS, and also left out the black world boom patches since they are posted on the other thread.

reply to post by boomer135


I didn't realise there were so many different squadrons for re-fueling??? So theoretically speaking "IF" the US were flying around in uber-secret aircraft, who would re-fuel such a beast, or is that something you shouldn't answer?

Sorry if this seems like a 5th grade question but I was thinking that some of the more exotic stealth engines and higher altitude flying craft might have different requirements but, do all the planes get the same fuel?

reply to post by Kurokage


As of 2010, there were 417 KC-135s in the US inventory. Wiki has a pretty good list of all the squadrons and their bases.

As for who refuels what, it depends on a couple of factors. There is one KC-135 that's dedicated to Edwards, and depending on the fuel required for the aircraft, you may see whoever gained the KC-135RTs that were at Beale for many years operating in support of them.

The current model in use with the Air Force is the R model, which went from the old TF33 turbofan to the CFM56 engines. The RT, when they were using the TF33 engines was known as the Q model. The only exterior difference (which used to piss my father off, because he could walk around any -135 except the Q model blindfolded), was that they had an extra antenna under the bottom. The Q model flew out of Beale AFB in support of the SR-71 flights, and carried JP-7 fuel that they required.

Once they were flying, the Q model pilots would switch to the tanks with the JP-7 in them, because it burned much better than the JP4/JP8 that was used at the time. But man it was a bitch to get to start burning. The SR-71 used to have to use TEB to ignite the fuel on engine start. Once it was ignited, it would burn just fine, but it was so hard to ignite, that you could actually use it to put fires out, and it wouldn't light.

reply to post by evc1shop


No. The vast majority of them get JP-8, which is the standard fuel of the Air Force (not sure if the Navy has switched or not, but they used to use JP-5). For years the Air Force used JP-4, which pissed the Navy off, because if we ran JP-4 through a carrier aircraft, they had to run three tanks of JP-5 through it, before they could take it below deck on the carrier.

The SR-71 (and any other high speed aircraft, if they exist ) use JP-7. It has a much higher flashpoint, and is much harder to ignite. They had to use .jpg]TEB to ignite it. In fact in at least one instance a crew chief used JP-7 to put out a small hangar fire.

reply to post by Zaphod58
I see. I had wondered about that because as a civilian programmer, I worked on some software for the 505th CCW to coordinate and schedule their Red/Blue/Green flag events. Each asset had a fuel type attribute but the asset tags for the strato's only listed a fuel type for themselves and did not indicate what they were carrying.

Thanks for clearing that up!

Originally posted by boomer135

Back tracked a little to 2012 and looky looky what I found....

Interesting. About the time of Iran's satellite launch, I guess. Trying to figure out why that would be lurking about in theatre.

reply to post by boomer135


I heard right after it happened that Cobra Ball was in the area. I don't think they knew what was happening until it was too late, but they kept a very close eye on Soviet communications, and interceptor frequencies. The only thing they watched closer was their mission objective. If they so much as heard a twitch on that interceptor frequency they were all over it.

Originally posted by Kurokage
reply to post by boomer135

 

I didn't realise there were so many different squadrons for re-fueling??? So theoretically speaking "IF" the US were flying around in uber-secret aircraft, who would re-fuel such a beast, or is that something you shouldn't answer?

Secret ops goes to the Edwards guys, and the crews that are TDY to Edwards for the testing. There are the SOAR guys at McConnell that do special ops air refueling but it's mostly low level AC-130 stuff, and not that exciting.

The KC-135Q and later the converted KC-135T models refueled the SR-71 and other aircraft that burned JP-7 fuel. The tanker never burned the JP-7 that I know of. They always burned JP-8 with the R model engine. The T model was designed specificially to stop the tanker pilots from burning the fuel or transfering the fuel from the body tanks to the wing tanks. So the JP-7 (and another type used after the SR) was used specifically for high speed aircraft. The KC135RT is a different aircraft that a KC-135T. Its the refuelable KC-135's I believe.

I did a write up a while back about Secret testing at Edwards, I'll go see if I can find it...


EDIT PAGE 10

reply to post by boomer135


Officially, no they didn't. Unofficially, from some crew guys, they loved burning the JP-7, because it gave them more power and some improvement to range. They'd blend it with the JP-4 to start it burning, and then switch to the -7 after it ignited.

Yeah, the RT is the one that can refuel, I forgot that they had modified them to be able to.