#tanker

KA-6D Tanker over Tonkin Gulf

New US attacks and Iran’s retaliation have also caused new, major problems for shipping through the Straits of Hormuz Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has almost stopped today Thursday, according to Reuters. Iran has made it clear that it will not back down on the issue of control of Hormuz Two tankers sailed through the Straits in the early hours of today, according to the…

6 July 1951. Aerial refuelling was used under combat conditions for the first time, with a KB-29 Superfortress refuelling four F-84G Thunderjet fighter bombers over North Korea (photographed refuelling a F-84).

73-09-07 嘉手納

KC-135A 96thBW 0-80110

96-10-28 to AMARC

Converted to KC-135R

97-12-19 to Turkish AF

The shortest mission: a lesson in humility.

We used to fly these very short missions out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during Desert Shield when the tension was sky-high. Most were only about an hour long.

The missions were simple: Takeoff, climb out, level off right at the track, meet the receiver, thirty minutes of refueling, and then home. No touch-and-goes, no long navigation legs, no farting around. Takeoff, air refuel, land. Pure heaven for a boom operator.

Most days these missions logged 1.1 or 1.2 hours. But one day our Nav said he wanted to see if we could beat the record and log a true 1.0-hour flight.

Our pilots kept the speed up on the descent, trying to shave those six minutes. But as they say, the best-laid plans…

About 20 miles from the field we were still screaming along. The pilots were fighting to slow down — gear hanging, speed brakes fully deployed — but when you’re still descending, it’s not easy to bleed off speed on a big jet.

They stowed the speed brakes and started bringing the flaps down, but we still weren’t slow enough and the runway was getting bigger and bigger in the windshield.

Finally, maybe a mile and a half out and around 600 feet, the Aircraft Commander gave in. He keyed the mic and asked the tower if we could do a 360 on short final to bleed off speed. Tower came back immediately: “Approved.”

We made the turn, got slowed down properly around 500 feet, and landed without incident. But we didn’t get our 1.0. That 360 cost us about five minutes.

After we parked, nobody said much at first. Then someone finally broke the silence with a quiet laugh. We all knew what had just happened.

We had tried to turn a simple, low-risk mission into a record attempt… and nearly turned it into something much worse.

That day taught us a lesson I never forgot: sometimes the shortest missions are the ones that can bite you the hardest if you push too far.

Photo caption:

RC-135 in flight. On this mission we were refueling one of these incredible aircraft. We offloaded around 60–80 pounds of fuel — enough to keep them airborne for another six hours. Photo by me.

A-1H Skyraider refueling FJ-4B Fury in 1958.

ZA141 (Vickers VC10 K.2 C/N 809)