The first and only time I ever tanked off a C-130J was supporting some reservists in the Dallas-Fort Worth area on a two-ship cross-country with one of my junior officer roomates. We were on the road for a training cross country with a reserve Tomcat squadron when we were handed the special instructions for a morning-long brawl between ourselves the Turkeys. I suspect our squadron CO would have soiled himself if he’d have known.
We took great pains to ensure the skipper didn’t soil himself
Joining on the Marine C-130 together for simultaneous refuel, we both snuggled in to our respective baskets before wiggling our toes, relaxing our grips on the bakelite and peeking around outside. Which is when we saw how very close our wingtips were to each other.
Yeah. It was kinda like that.
Still. Free gas.
And you still loved every second of it, didn’t you. You’re lyin’ if you say no, Boss. I’ll know that.
Subsunk
Yup….. it’s what airdales live for.
That was pretty freakin’ cool. So much amazing stuff in the military you can’t experience anywhere else. I think a lot more people could get more out of the military than they probably think, if only they would join. And not just amazing moments like this.
I’m afraid of heights. I got queasy just watching that.
Yikes! Too close for this USAF “boomer.” (Although I do have a picture of my 1st cousin Gen. Talbott back in the 50s as part of a 3-ship formation of F-100Cs from his Wing simultaneously refueling from a probe & drogue configured B-50–the reels/hose-lengths were CONSIDERABLY longer than the C-130 config! Only time I ever viewed refueling from that end was during ROTC summer camp at Lockbourne AFB, Columbus, OH, then a KC-135/C-130 base. They put us in a 135 and we refueled a B-52 from Loring over Presque Isle, Maine. Talk about a beautiful sight with a background of an emerald-green island below in a sea of curlean blue! (Wasn’t quite as noisy, either back in the tail behind the boom operator’s glass
)
Where’s that pic of the F-111 refuelling, Pilot waving, Nav happily reading a Penthouse mag.
As a bubblehead, I admit I may have derided “airedales” once or twice (in jest, I’m certain!), but I’ll hand it to you jet jockeys…you’ve got big brass ones.
And I suppose that people that live a culvert, with both ends close, then intentionally sink the contraption are cowards?
One of the Captains in my squadron was an Airedale, and he had been abord a Sub for a short stint. He said he NEVER wanted to do that again.
I dunno. Those C-130s are in the trash hauling business. Hope no one passes “Sweepers” while baby birds were alongside. Could get exciting if the 130 crew dumped trash abaft the fantail.
That was just awesome!! One question, though… what makes refueling off a C-130 different than what you were used to? Was it just the shorter hoses (equaling aircraft closer together), or does the Navy not do simultaneous refueling?
Umm… that was two questions, wasn’t it?
Aren’t USMC C-130s the only tankers that usually fuel more than one plane at a time?
I remember seeing the photos of the first refueling back in the 30′s, when they lowered a hose from one plane to another, and then a guy in the upper plane got busy with jerry cans and a hand pump. Wasn’t it Col. Doolittle the pilot on that flight?
FbL,
Propwash, I suspect. Never tanked off a C-130, though, so I’m just guessing. Tanking off A-7s was always colorful though, ’cause you had to use rudder and aileron to keep your right wing out of his exhaust…
Yak, it’s not only the propwash, like the A-7, but also the slow speed of the 130. I can remember refueling from a 130 off Hawaii going downhill to keep the A/S reasonable and looking over and seeing the yolk almost vertical instead of horizontal. One wing was in prop/jet wash and the other in clear air.
Boss: You nailed it! We did some plugs off the El Toro 130′s, I kept my hand on the flap handle as we had them going down hill while we kept it on the edge at 1/2 flaps to stay in the basket. Exactly the issue with the long, thin A-3 wing: one wing int he prop wash, the other outside and the spoilers going nuts.
OTOH the Intruder seemed much more comfortable behind them; at least until we got heavy at near a full bag.
VR,
Comjam
I still think that the scariest IFR I ever experienced was those at high altitude, say 35 – 40 thousand feet. In the thin air, any movement in the controls of the tanker or guy trying to plug in, would result in severe ocillations of the basket or the receiving a/c. Best to swallow your pride, back off and try again.
I liked how the one guy kept scooting closer and closer to the edge to get the shot. My palms were a little damp after watching that.
I also noticed that the planes still had air to air missles on the tips. Don’t quote me on this but I am guessing there hasn’t been any A2A in twenty some years there, at least since gulf 1. Just an observation I guess.
Did you hear about the former WASP CO that was canned last year? Turns out he was getting kickbacks for promoting vendors in port calls. This article was taken down on the Navy site but thanks to google cache we still have it. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:gyGAWtTw-GAJ:www.navytimes.com/news/2010/02/navy_hawley_wasp_fired_021510w/+wasp+hawley+co+fired&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Hornets carry Sidewinders (or even CATMS) on the wingtip rails because they function like small winglets and can help save gas.
and it wouldn’t do to be the pilot, or squadron commander, who’s A/C wound up needing a missile or two, and didn’t have any aboard…. better to have and not need, then need and not have.
You don’t need one, til you need one, then you need it bad!
And if you don’t have one, you will probably never need one again.
The standard combat load for all of the Marine Deltas flying out of Al Asad, where this aircraft was most likely based, included two AIM-9s and one AIM-120. Maybe because a lot of their flying took them up along the Iranian border.
In response to FBL’s question, you’re chasing a badminton birdie with a fuel hose attached, and the airflow near your aircraft makes it want to skip away from your nose and refueling probe. Add to that the turbulence of the aircraft ahead of you, which always happens to be the one with the gas in it, and longer hoses and smaller tankers are generally better as they make you and the basket jostle around less.
Note that a small tanker out of gas is no better than a big tanker out of gas, so there is a point of diminishing return. This can be expressed with the mathematical formula: (Wth) – (Win) = X, where Wth is What Tanker Has, Win is What I Need, and X being the attitude of the pilot. As X goes from positive to negative so does the attitude of the pilot. And the aircraft. And the chances of it being a good day. There’s a lot of things involved when it comes to X.
My question is, wouldn’t lowering the C-130′s ramp increase the turbulence and make a difficult job even more difficult? That open rear is effectively a big swirl-inducing monster maw of a vacuum causing all sorts of eddies and currents behind the C-130, and it doesn’t look like the F/A-18′s had all that much room to work with anyway. Also wondering if it wouldn’t make sense to pack some longer reels and deploy to unequal lengths if refueling two, so they can be in a staggered formation just in case somebody needs to break away or something breaks?
– Max
The Hornet squadron in the video looked like VMFA (AW) 121 Green Knights, out of Miramar.
FbL, I’m guessig that the C-130 was different for Lex because he was used to being refueled from Navy jets that could gas only 1 customer at a time, therefore nobody was right on his wing while he was ‘doing his business’. C-130s can refuel 2 planes at once.
I’m sure if we speculate on it enough Lex will eventually chime in with the real reason.
Yes, those are Green Knights of VMFA (AW) 121-
They adopted the “Covey” callsign
on their 2007 tour.
Go here, page 5 of 8, lower left corner:
http://www.fac-assoc.org/newsletter/Jan08.pdf
Wingspan of a Tomcat at those speads is twice that of a Hornet [unswept]. Lex is talking about 2 Tomcats refueling from a C-130…
Lex would lower his standards enough to fly a Tomcat?
I expect when the choice is flameout and nylon approach and landing or share the tanker with a Tomcat, the choice is very easy
Some of the current KC-10s have been modified with wing drogue pods, to supplement the centerline hose reel. This gives them the ability to tank three at the same time. But, not exactly a recent innovation.
Only tanked off a KC-130 once, enroute to Barbers to pound a Hawaiian religious shrine into submission. War Hoover was too wide to tank two at the same time, so all three of us waited as one hit the basket. Wasn’t too bad turbulence. And definitely more forgiving than hitting the metal basket on the KC-135.
…and who doesn’t love to watch naval aviators Passing Gas.
Yup, it was a bit weird because of the proximity to each other, side by side tanking like. It’s the only airplane I’ve ever gotten gas off that had two customers at one time I don’t think.
Propwash wasn’t all that bad, and I sure as checkers wasn’t flying a Turkey. No offense.
I was rather impressed that the Marine stuck the probe in the basket on the first attempt. I’d been led to believe it was normally somewhat more difficult than that.
Hey, he was a Marine. What did you expect?
On our last AMC flight to SoCal, we flew on a KC135 that had a squadron of FA/18s along for the trip. The kids and I had a blast watching them refuel along the way. The crew of the tanker were kind enough to allow the little ones to join them in the refueling bay to watch the fun. I have pictures somewhere that I should put up.
On the way back out of North Island, we flew on a C-130 that was ‘overloaded’ with passengers and cargo. So he flew low and slow and the flight took NINE HOURS to Hickam. I never want to see the inside of a damn C-130 ever again. Crew was great. Ride was not.
One of the best trips to the mainland I’ve had in a while.
It was also exciting getting gassed northbound, at night, over Laos (can I mention that?).It required the burner on number one or two in the Phantom, as we toted some iron for package five. The best part was the transition from 100% on both, to minimum burner on one.
Whoever put the receptacle behind the GIB?
One of MacNamara’s morons.
Don’t trust us, Dave. The boomer’s supposed to “fly” the boom to us, right?
I guess we all worked at it. The boomers were more scared than I was, especially during the pilot induced oscillations! Good thing these wonderful times were had by the young.
I mind the dot.com boom, and all those suddenly-rich geeks buying expensive bizjets. At the time, I thought, Have y’all no class? What’s a nerd doing in a G-4 among the social elite?
Now, had I been one of them, or won the lottery, I would have bought me a Hercules (Lockheed did civilly certificate it) and hired some pilots and mechanics. Just think of pulling yer truck and boat up into your airplane, and taking off for favorite fishing area! That plane’s good on short dirt fields, you know.
I would also have commissioned the construction of some re-inforced lawn chairs to fasten to the ramp so I could wallow in the airborne redneck back porch experience. Hey, empty beer cans are light and fall slowly, they won’t hurt anybody, right?
I don’t know how empty beer cans fall, but, full ones fall pretty fast. I watched four cases of Bud go out the cargo door of an SH-3 at about 5000′ over Florida, when we hit some turbulence. I’d have grabbed them, but, I didn’t have a gunner’s belt on at the time and I didn’t want to go out after them. I always wondered if they hit something. There was a lot of houses below us.
We need to do some science here. I need to find a tall building and get a stopwatch, and maybe a volunteer to stand below. I already have plenty of empty beer cans. I think you can calculate terminal velocity if you get time and space hacks on the can on its way down.
P.s. Reason for volunteer, assuming we hit him: We get to ask him, “Did that hurt?”
This reminds me of the stories about fueling a Habu on a warm day: when it was almost full, it needed one of the afterburners to get enough thrust to stay on the tanker. And of course, what pilot would disconnect, light the AB, and reconnect once somebody proved it could be done without breaking the connection?
Hey guys, I’m a KC-130J airframes mech, and I actually know SSGT Torres from that video. I did two pumps for OIF. Our hercs have the capability to refuel with both hoses at once. And, no, having the ramp down and the door open does not affect any refueling operations. It’s actually a fairly common practice to do so, as I personally have plenty of photos with said conditions, and usually refueling helos, mostly 53′s.