Hallway talk at the 349th Air Refueling Squadron: “No, you can’t do it unless you’ve done it.”
My fellow, but more senior, pilot, Murph, was being completely sincere and truthful. We indeed were not allowed to pilot a KC-135 on a mission to refuel a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy unless we had already piloted a KC-135 on a mission to refuel a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy.
“Doesn’t that severely limit our ability to in-flight refuel C-5s?” I said.
“Naw,” Denied Murph. “That’s why we are all going out tonight to refuel a C-5.”
Following my top philosophy given to me by a wise Viet Nam Vet, I certainly found myself in the right place that night. I definitely was not alone. The back of the KC-135 was filled with pilots who “needed to do it”. We each took turns, rotating into the left seat, as the instructor pilot cautioned us about how to hold the KC-135 steady to allow the huge C-5 to approach and hook up to our boom.
Being matched with the SR-71 and not on nuclear alert with B-52s meant that our squadron picked up a lot of different aircraft refueling missions. And it was well known within Strategic Air Command that the “Beale Bandits” were widely experienced in areas that our on-alert brothers had not had the chance to get experience with, such as formation flying. So over the brief time I was a pilot (1977 – 1982) I got to experience all USAF receivers and quite a few Army and Navy as well. Sometimes this required replacing the boom with a drogue basket for certain receivers. I mentioned dragging fighters across the Atlantic in this post. It is hard to forget refueling a C-130 piloted by a new guy who seems to want to clip your boom with his propellers. I even received assignments to in-flight refuel in Area 51. (Hold at this altitude and speed, refuel whatever comes up to you, don’t talk about it later.) I will talk about those in future posts.
But for now, I’ll say that all receivers had their own little differences in altitude and speed for optimum refueling. But having refueled at the edge of the controllability envelope with the SR-71, all other receivers were a bit more pedestrian — just a matter of knowing the numbers and any special aircraft eccentricities. We almost always used the same rendezvous techniques of flying in a racetrack pattern and then turning towards the incoming aircraft so that we could turn again and roll out right in front of him. This is called point parallel rendezvous.
The C-5 had a definite eccentricity. Two aircraft flying in close proximity, as aircraft do when they refuel in flight, are subject to aerodynamic forces which would like to see them smash together. So the pilot of the tanker and the pilot of the receiver try very hard to not let this happen. With the gigantic C-5, this is further complicated by a bow wave that precedes the aircraft and tends to push up the tail of the tanker.
I have heard that all air refueling nowadays are done with the tanker on autopilot. I don’t know if that is true, but when I was flying back then, we did not trust the autopilot. We may use it during refueling, but we were always cautious and kept our hands on or near the yoke, that is, the steering wheel / stick that controls the aircraft. And we all trained to ensure we could keep a steady platform for the pilot receiving our fuel because it was very likely we would be doing just that. At least back then a good pilot was better than the autopilot.
So the lesson for the night was, keep the tanker steady no matter how the C-5 tried to push you around.
I got my turn in the left seat. The C-5 had backed off to the pre-contact position behind us and I strapped in. As I flew the aircraft and the boom operator signaled the C-5 to come forward, it was very easy to feel the push of the bow wave of the C-5 and the need for me to compensate the pitch of the aircraft to keep things stable, that is, level and on speed.
What could go wrong? I could let the tanker get pushed around. My aircraft would pitch down as the C-5 pushed its tail up. I would chase pitch, altitude, and airspeed, which all affect each other. My inputs to keep on the right heading could couple my roll movements into this mess. Keep in mind that while flying the aircraft is very important, I am also directing the crew, keeping in touch with the C-5 pilot, transferring fuel, ensuring the center of gravity of my aircraft is OK as the fuel drains, and many other things all at once. If I let things get away from me, the receiver would play “crack the whip” as I became a moving target. If we let this game proceed, we could even contact each other in the air — never a good thing as parts go flying. It could be a disaster.
But, since I had now experienced refueling a C-5, it was no longer any big deal. Although my instruction was brief (with so many waiting for my seat), I felt confident that I would hold a stable aircraft for any future C-5 refueling that my crew would be selected for. So we backed the C-5 off to the pre-contact position, I swapped my seat for a standing position in the back of the cockpit, and kept an eye on things as the crew settled in with the new pilot. (As with so many professions, if you are near the action you not only take an interest, you feel a responsibility to ensure every thing is going well.)
Everything looking good, I left for the rear of the aircraft. Passing the little space that served as a galley, I grabbed a cup of coffee and looked for a seat among the other pilots who had finished or who were waiting for their turn. Then I noticed a break in the parade of folks cycling through the boom pod.
Everything looking good, I left for the rear of the aircraft. Passing the little space that served as a galley, I grabbed a cup of coffee and looked for a seat among the other pilots who had finished or who were waiting for their turn. Then I noticed a break in the parade of folks cycling through the boom pod.
The boom pod is the area at the very rear of the aircraft where the boom operator lays down, facing aft so as to control the boom, and dispenses the fuel to the receiver aircraft. It is usually quite a good view. Tonight it was fantastic.
And I mean fantastic in the sense that the C-5 is really gigantic. As it edged closer and closer to our tail so that the boom operator could position the boom to transfer fuel, I kept thinking it could get no bigger in our aft boom pod windscreen. But it did. In the end, when contact was made, I had an unprecedented view through their massive cockpit windows. I would compare it to a peek inside the bridge of the starship Enterprise on Star Trek. Behind the pilot and co-pilot, behind the rest of the crew and their stations, there seemed to be milling about and pacing room for hangers-on to enjoy their coffee. And there was a steady stream of pilots changing out of and into the left seat.
Why?
They can’t do it unless they’ve done it.
