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3/20/2009 - MANAS AIR BASE, Kyrgyzstan (AFNS) -- The 376th Air Expeditionary Wing's fleet of KC-135 Stratotankers here delivers more than fuel to the fight in Afghanistan these days as it is revolutionizing the way war is fought by serving as a data network relay high above the battlefield. At first glance, the cluster of cases mounted in the back of Manas Air Base's 50-year-old KC-135s does not look very revolutionary, but the innovative system and its use on a refueling tanker employs the Roll-On-Beyond-Line-Of-Sight-Enhancement, or ROBE, system. Developed by Northrop Grumman in 2003, ROBE is a communication system that...

More than 50 years after its first flight, the KC-135 tanker is the workhorse of the U.S. Air Force, a flying gas station that loiters over the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan every day. And it will keep flying for at least 30 more years...

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 11 PRNewswire-FirstCall — The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) has been awarded a 10-year, $1.1 billion U.S. Air Force contract to continue providing programmed depot maintenance (PDM) for the nation's KC-135 Stratotanker fleet. Boeing will perform the work for more than 200 KC-135 aircraft at facilities in Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri. Since the initial KC-135 PDM contract award in October 1998, Boeing has completed scheduled and unscheduled maintenance on more than 160 aircraft. Conducted every five years, scheduled PDM services include depot-level inspections, repairs, maintenance, modifications, re-painting and supply chain services. Unscheduled maintenance comprises about half of the...

At 20,000 feet an F-15C Eagle fighter jet assigned to the 12th Fighter Squadron, Elmendorf Air Force Base (AFB), Alaska, refuels behind a KC-135 Stratotanker on 26 March 2007 over the Pacific Alaska Range Complex. The KC-135 is assigned to the 168th Air Refueling Squadron, Eielson AFB, Alaska. The tanker also provides aerial refueling support to Navy and Marine Corps aircraft as well as aircraft of allied nations. Image ID: 070326-F-4192W-903. Photographer Master Sgt. Robert Wieland, United States Air ForceImage Linkhttp://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/070326-F-4192W-903.jpgF-15 Eagle & MiG-29 Contrails Over Alaskahttp://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/f-news/1777578/posts

7/10/2006 - OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM (AFPN) -- Whether refueling a fighter, bomber or a cargo aircraft, the KC-135 Stratotanker continues to play a vital role in military air operations and the war on terrorism. "Everything we do has a direct impact on the war on terror and how the (United States) is viewed elsewhere in the world." said Lt. Col. Dave Cohen, 28th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron commander. In one month, tanker crews completed more than 100 sorties, 617 hours of flying time and brought 7 million pounds of fuel to the fight -- a task that is being accomplished...

U.S. Air Force Capt. Erick Turasz, 28th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron aircraft commander, taxis a KC-135 behind a U.S. Air Force B-1B before take off on a refueling mission, June 16, 2006. Turasz is deployed from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Jason Smith KC-135 Aircrew Vital Part of Mission Success The mission premise seems simple: refuel B-1s enroute to and returning from a mission; in reality, flying a 1950s-era KC-135 to refuel an aircraft it wasnÂ’t designed to refuel is never an easy task. By U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jason Smith...

/8/2006 - OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM (AFPN) -- They have their hands in virtually every aspect of the KC-135 Stratotanker mission here -- they are the flow, the operational heartbeat. It starts at the top with their commander, runs through the operations officer, to a KC-135 mission planning cell, then to the aircrews. Then there is a support cast comprising 12 people who work in intelligence, crew communication, flight records, life support and flight medicine specialties. Each one of these sections is key to the team and vital to getting gas safely delivered to our customer on time. It’s pretty clear...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee said on Friday it had voted in effect to shield Boeing Co. from competition from Europe's largest defense contractor for a projected $50 billion U.S. aerial-refueling aircraft market. The panel neither singled out nor named EADS, which wants to offer a tanker version of its Airbus A330 to the U.S. Air Force. Instead, it voted to bar the acquisition of a major weapons system from any foreign company that gets what the United States has protested as a government subsidy barred by the World Trade Organization, said spokesman, Josh Holly....

5/19/2005 - FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. (AFPN) -- Five numbers painted on the tail of a local parade’s float will pass by thousands of people, and they may not see what is between them. A string of numbers can represent anything from how much money someone has in his or her bank account, to phone numbers or even ZIP codes. 71424 represents the life and love of a father. Capt. Richard Doughty originally flew B-36 Peacemakers before becoming a navigator on KC-135 Stratotankers at Amarillo Air Force Base, Texas, in the late 1960s. In May 1966 he had many...

Tanker aircraft delivers 1 billionth pound of fuel by Staff Sgt. Monte J. VolkU.S. Central Command Air Forces-Forward Public Affairs4/22/2004 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- If you were to count from one to 1 billion it would take about 95 years. It took a little over a year for U.S. Central Command’s Combined Force Air Component Command-controlled tanker airlift to deliver 1 billion pounds of jet fuel. A KC-135 Stratotanker delivered 84,000 pounds of fuel to three different aircraft over Iraq on April 21 surpassing 1 billion pounds of fuel delivered in the theater since Jan. 30, 2003. One billion pounds is a...

Senate removes provision to aid Boeing tanker deal By Amy Svitak, CongressDaily The Senate late Thursday removed a provision in its version of the fiscal 2004 $87 billion emergency supplemental appropriations bill that could have paved the way for approving the Bush administration's controversial plan to lease Boeing commercial 767 airplanes as refueling tankers. Prior to a voice vote, Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, offered an amendment that removed a requirement for the Pentagon to describe alternatives for replacing the Air Force's fleet of KC-135 tanker aircraft. The provision was added by the committee during its markup, and...

Author ArchiveE-mail AuthorSend to a Friend Print Version September 15, 2003, 9:00 a.m.Holes in the SkyWorking with old bird.ighters and bombers get pretty thirsty pretty quickly. An F-16 has a combat radius of about 575 miles, an F-117 about 650 miles. To fly from a base in Kuwait to Baghdad and back is about 700 miles, necessitating at least one meeting with an airborne gas station. During the Iraq campaign, our fighters and bombers were flying upwards of 2,000 sorties each day. And the tankers — those huge lumbering KC-135s and KC-10s — were right there with them, flying...

QUICK LINKS: HOME | NEWS | OPINION | RIGHTPAGES | CHAT | WHAT'S NEW townhall.comThe Air Force's new lease on lifeFrank J. Gaffney, Jr. (back to web version) September 3, 2003  When Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain opens a hearing today [Wednesday] on an Air Force proposal to lease 100 Boeing 767 tanker aircraft, he will cast himself as a defender of the public interest against wasteful defense spending.  It is, therefore, no small irony that this hearing ? and the dilatory, many-months-long process it culminates, is the real waste of time and energy, to the detriment of...

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02/06/03 - OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM (AFPN) -- In one of her songs, country singer Shania Twain croons about all the things women do these days -- they are judges, politicians, doctors and soldiers, to name a few. Not mentioned in the song, but occurring more frequently as the global war on terrorism continues, is something else: female fliers in combat missions over Afghanistan. Early on Jan. 31, a KC-135 Stratotanker took off from Ganci Air Base, Kyrgyzstan, carrying more than 180,000 pounds of fuel and an all-female crew -- both pilots, a navigator and a boom operator. The event...

Nice 135 crew, the one riding heard on the plumbers panels while very cute and all, looks to be not a day over 15. I've crewed with many many pilots in my days and some of the best sticks have been female. TMMT