Thread
:
F-8 versus F-4
View Single Post
#
2
May 14th 05, 12:35 AM
Doug \Woody\ and Erin Beal
external usenet poster
Posts: n/a
On 5/13/05 2:01 PM, in article
, "Mike
Kanze" wrote:
Woody,
The most challenging CONDITIONS were definitely over Iraq in March/April of
2003.
Care to elaborate?
Owl,
Turbulence like you read about in the North. Most of the refueling was IMC.
In fact, I had one rendezvous (night, NVG's, wingman) where we didn't
visually break out the fully lit tanker until .3 miles in the HUD (STT radar
lock, distance reported by lead because *I* was certainly flying welded
wing--looked reasonable though). NASTY! Several nights the weather was
from nearly the surface all the way above 350 to 400.
Getting into the iron maiden on the KC-135 is challenging in turbulence
(actually, staying in is the rough part), but with WORPS or WOPR stores on
the 10 or the 135 in turbulence with all that excessive amount of hose
bouncing the basket all over, it was downright hard as hell! One night, we
had a Prowler rip a store off the tanker and a Tomcat rip the probe off the
aircraft and divert. Toughest tanking I've ever seen!
Speaking of which, I'll never figure out how the Prowlers found the tankers
on those IMC nights, but they always managed to just by using their
yardstick. Those guys did some very impressive work.
Frankly, we hung it out a bit in conditions that we normally wouldn't have
accepted to get ordnance to the folks on the ground.
--Woody
Doug \Woody\ and Erin Beal