Posted on 08/10/2016 6:43:05 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A KC-135 Stratotanker refuels a SR-71 Blackbird at an unknown location. The KC-135 has been in the Air Forces inventory since 1957, serving in many of our nations conflicts and supporting the Air Force's Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance mission, over the past six decades. (Courtesy photo)
Would that milestone be that every single crew member serving on the KC-135 is older than the aircraft itself?
However, I do think the KC-135 fleet will soon heading for its sunset years as the KC-46 replaces them. The initial order for 100 planes could be expanded to possibly another 150 to 200 planes, which will allow the complete phase out of the KC-135 fleet.
I remember flying out of Okinawa refueling B-52s. Looking out the left window, you could see two B-52s being refueled in the distance. Same out the right window. Then there was the one WE were refueling.
Our aircraft was a KC-135Q. We called it the “queer” model as it had special tanks to refuel the SR-71 and could still do Bombers and fighters.
Well, let’s see - I was a tanker driver from 1970-’73 at Pease AFB, NH. I’m about to turn 72. My copilots boomers, and navs were my age +/- a couple of years. Toward the end of Veet Nam, they did take some kids straight out of basic.
Go Strato Bladders!
ping for later
Pease. Refueling the FB-111As? I was at Mtn. Home from 78081 working avionics maintenance for the F-111A.
I was referring to current crewmembers, not seasoned vets like yourself.
I flew as a passenger on a KC-135 from Elmendorf to Ramstein. It was the coldest, most miserable flight I’ve ever been on. If you stood up, your head was in 80 degree heat while your feet were in 35 degree cold. Then the urinals started overflowing, so we couldn’t use them anymore. If I ever fly Space A, I’m avoiding the 135.
And as we say in the C-130 world, when the last KC-135 goes to D-M, it'll be a C-130 that flies the crew home. Same with the C-5 and C-17. BTW, the first C-130 flew two years before the KC-135, in August 1954.
The back end of Navy EA-3s were the same way. We often flew missions with heavy socks but stripped to the waist.
>> The KC-135 is still viable because the USAF was able to use a large number of parts salvaged from scrapped Boeing 707 airliners ...
Roger that. I was furloughed from United from ‘81 to late ‘84, lived in Miami, and spent time ferrying 707s out to the boneyard. The AF stripped off the JT3D-3B engines and the horizontal tail feathers.
The original tanker J-57 engines did not have reversers and drove the brake temps through the roof when stopping. Tanker drivers must have been in heaven the first time they pulled the reversers!
A design defect in the 707/-135s was that when the aircraft made approaches and landings with flaps in the 40 position, it created a low period (1-2 second) pitch oscillation that ultimately overstressed the horizontal tail. After one snapped off in Mozambique, most airlines (and I think the AF) restricted landings to 30 flaps.
An interesting note from AF flight school days (Vance 70-02): If you had plans to go to the airlines after your AF hitch was up, two airplanes were high on your list - C-141s and tanks. 141 drivers went to MAC and got lots of cross country hours BUT only for a year. Then, you got sent to Viet Nam in a light aircraft (Gooney bird, Cessna MixMaster, C-123, etc.).
I chose the 135, but it came with another horror: SAC. “SAC sucks” was the expression, along with “A suck for SAC is a blow for freedom”. By the time I got there in 1970, things had changed. Lots of TDY and fighter drags across the pacific. Not much alert duty.
Ended up as an IP (instructor pilot); got out after 5-1/2 years with 2,000 hours total time; the minimum for the airlines.
>> ... deafening roar and pitch-black smoke from the water injected J-57s ...
Yup. The use of a water injection system added thrust equivalent to a 5th engine. I seem to remember that it ran out after 120 seconds; just after flap retraction.
The lack of a proper water service took the lives of three of my friends at Santa Cruz, Bolivia in 1976. (Google up “B707 Santa Cruz Bolivia). The plane was deadheading empty back to Miami. They had an engine failure on takeoff; if they had had a full water service (5,000# of it), they would have been fine. So much for “get home-itis”.
I flew on a KC-135 in Feb 1993 from Travis AFB, CA, to Misawa AB, Japan. Only because the normal cargo aircraft fleet, the C-141, was grounded with wing cracks.
The first phase of the flight was okay, but then we had to divert to Elmendorf AFB because Misawa was closed by a blizzard. Spent the night there, with two feet of snow on the ground. A bit colder than California.
I and a team of escorts were transporting very high priority cargo (two small boxes), so the next day we bumped a colonel and his staff from the next KC-135 shuttle to Misawa.
Miserable flight, as you said. Canvas jump seats, alternately hot and cold, very loud, bad in-flight box lunches. The seating was at the rear of the aircraft, and passengers had to climb over cargo pallets to get to the head at the front of the aircraft.
Big difference is that the C-130 is still being built ; the last KC-135 to be built joined the USAF in 65.
I was stationed at Pease in ‘78-79. Crew chief on the KC-135. Good times (mostly). It was weird to see Pease a few years back as a commercial “tradeport.”
The thing I remember about a KC-135A takeoff was 1) the very distinct and loud whine of the J57's when the plane was flying towards you, 2) the load roar as the plane passed overhead and flying away from you, and 3) the long smoke trail when water injection was turned on. Small wonder why when the USAF had to chance to modify a bunch of KC-135A's with JT3D turbofan engines salvaged from scrapped Boeing 707 airliners they did it really quickly.
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