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Sometimes the Tanker Crews Bent the Rules to Ensure That Strike Aircraft, Critically Low on Fuel, Made It Home

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Sometimes the Tanker Crews Bent the Rules to Ensure That Strike Aircraft, Critically Low on Fuel, Made It Home Sometimes the tanker crews bent the rules to ensure that strike aircraft, critically low on fuel, made it home. The Young Tigers and Their Friends By Walter J. Boyne at. heartfelt phrase -Thanks, KA-3 just as it was notified that two tliat's a save!" was heard more Navy Fz8,Crgsaders wqre on scene Onlines during the \heti**. 5Thi rtçf fuel. War as hardworking "Young Tiger" One of the F-8 fighters had only crews of KC-135 tankers moved into 300 pounds remaining and immedi- -'arm's way. delivering salvation to ately hooked up with the second Whale strike aircraft perilously low on fuel. even as iwas taking on fuel from the Ironically, many ocee sans were K.C-43:Witiating historPs first tri- er corded simplv level refitting. As this was going on, cc heAjhe thnk- the first KA-3 shared its slender fuel er t r normal orbits to enter suppirwith the second Crusader. It 4arietfy airspace. in violation at stand- then moved into position to refuel ing instrue* s. again from the KC-I35. one 6 he saves was spectacu- So far Casteel and his crew had lar—particularly to the fighter pilot had a pretty productive day, refuel- who was being saved—but what was ing the F-104s, and saving two KA- potsibly the most incredible save of 3s and two F-8s. the war illustrates the bravery, inge- However, the action was not yet nuity, and persistence of the tanker complete. Two Navy F-4 Phantoms crews in general. now arrived on scene, and neither There was some good had sufficient fuel to return to their fortune as well in the carrier. Already low on fuel itself, May 31, 1967, Young the KC-135 turned south toward Da Tiger rillhiloo over the Nang, refueling the two F-4s en route. Gulf of Tonkin, when When it landed, the KC-135 had a KC-135 tanker com- less than 10,000 pounds of fuel re- manded by Maj. John maining for its own use. The boom H. Casteel saved six Navy aircraft operator, MSgt. Nathan C. Campbell. with a complex and totally unsched- had earned his pay, saving no fewer uled refueling. The KC-135's origi- than six Navy aircraft. Casteet's nahnon was to refuel two F-104 crew, including the copilot, Capt. Starfighters, using the drogue adapter Richard L. Trail. and the navigator, that the probe-equipped F404s re- Capt. Dean L. Hoar, received Dis- quired. Casteers tanker refueled the tinguished Flying Crosses for the two F-104s an was then told of an action. The crew subsequently was ipe einergency in4ving two Navy KA- awarded the Mackay Trophy. 3*Whale" tanker aircraft, which also used probes. Forgotten Heroes The first Whale hooked up, indi- These awards validate the gener- cating that it had only three min- ally held view that the crew mem- utes' usable fuel. Its systems had bers of the KC-135 tankers are the fri-AlfuncIicified. and it could not use forgotten heroes of the Vietnam War. fuel it had in it refueling tanks. From the Operation Pipe Stem RF- After transferring 2,300 pounds, the 101 reconnaissance missions and the il.C-135 then refueled the second trans-Pacific fighter deployments in ited by the length of available run- ways, the KC-135s were nonethe- less well-suited for their task. Far more reliable and easier to maintain than their piston-engine predecessors, the KC-135s were equipped with adequate navigation and rendezvous equipment, if not adequate electronic countermea- sures gear. Fast, they were some- times pushed beyond their .90 Mach training limit speed. Because they were pleasant to fly they made the long, demanding missions endur- able. The tanker aircrews, dedicated, disciplined, and well-trained, quickly adapted to radical changes in their operational routine imposed by com- bat conditions. For years they had A Young Tiger trilevel aerial refueling by Maj. John Casteel, Capt. Richard serviced individual SAC bombers or Trail, Capt. Dean Hoar, and MSgt. Nathan Campbell (l-r) was among the most TAC fighters on carefully planned dramatic saves performed by tankers in the Vietnam War. simulated combat missions, where all refueling points, altitudes, fre- 1961 through the Operation Bullet It is often overlooked that the quencies, and off-loads were planned Shot buildup of 1972, the men who Herculean work of the Southeast Asia well in advance and with extreme flew tankers were the tightly coiled tanker units was conducted while the care. All that changed in SEA, where mainspring of Air Force combat op- majority of Strategic Air Command's the tankers had four primary and erations. refueling assets were dedicated to many secondary missions. The very first aerial refuelings in supporting the Single Integrated Op- The first primary mission was to support of combat in Southeast Asia eration Plan for nuclear war. The to- service the saturation bombing mis- occurred on June 9,1964, when four tal burden of refueling activity fell on sions code-named Arc Light, refuel- KC-135s gave prestrike refuelings the KC-135s in 1964, when Tactical ing the formations of B-52s on their to eight F-100s. Both tankers and Air Command KB-50s and SAC KC- 12-hour missions from Guam. (No receivers were part of the Yankee 97s were retired. SAC was the single in-flight refueling was required for Team Tanker Task Force operating manager for its force of approximately bombers from U Tapao, Thailand.) out of Clark AB, Philippines, against 625 KC-135s, and it was hard-pressed While differing from normal state- targets in Laos. to meet alert requirements, conduct side practices in operational proce- The Stratotankers—a name rarely training, support TAC, and sustain dures, the Arc Light missions were used by the crews—were true force operations in SEA. relatively predictable and as routine multipliers, equally vital to B-52 and The hard truth was that, while these as in-flight refueling can ever be. to tactical fighter operations. With- 625 tankers were adequate for their One tanker was assigned to one out tankers, the bomber operations role in supporting a nuclear war op- bomber for the inbound portion of from Guam would have been impos- eration, the number was insufficient the mission; some of the tankers then sible, and the fighter force would to maintain that role and conduct a recycled through Clark AB for any have been virtually incapacitated. sustained conventional campaign. required poststrike refueling. The fighters needed the tankers at USAF compensated for the shortfall The second primary mission was the beginning of a mission to top off with the self-sacrifice of the tanker Young Tiger, which called for meet- tanks so that more ordnance could aircrews who took up the slack with ing the needs of the tactical aircraft in be carried over longer ranges. They long months of TDY in SEA alter- their raids on targets throughout SEA. needed them again for poststrike re- nated with extended alert duty when The demands of Young Tiger were fueling, filling empty tanks so that they returned home. revolutionary: Tankers had to handle, strike aircraft, sometimes damaged on an ad hoc basis, dozens of fighters and leaking fuel, could get home. Aircraft Well - Suited that were sometimes in danger of si- When the situation demanded, the The SEA tanker air and ground multaneous flameouts from fuel star- tankers went inside the combat area crews were able to achieve their de- vation. The Young Tiger missions to off-load fuel, even though offi- cade-long success for a variety of fostered entirely new concepts of flex- cially forbidden to do so. Without reasons. They had the advantage of a ibility and crew coordination, with the tankers, aircrew casualties would designed-to-purpose tanker, one of the boom operator taking on an im- have been dramatically, perhaps pro- the Air Force's great procurement portant mission management role. hibitively, higher. For these and many decisions, the KC-135. Although Mission planning times were severely other reasons, the KC-135 tankers underpowered for operations in the reduced, and the conduct of the mis- were key to the whole Vietnam con- heat and humidity of Southeast Asia, sion was continually adjusted to meet flict. and with performance sometimes lim- the current situation. 76 AIR FORCE Magazine/ June 1998 The third primary mission was more specialized, handling the refu- Gas and der:Tanker Operations in the Vietnam War eling requirements of reconnaissance Year No. of Tanker Fuel aircraft, from RB-47s (phased out Tankers Sorties Off-loaded (lbs) by 1966) to SR-71s, the latter re- quiring dedicated KC-135Qs filled 9,200 315 million with the special JP-7 fuel used by 1966 75 18,200 850 million the Blackbird. The fourth primary ILL967 75 23,000 1.1 billion mission was to serve as electronic reconnaissance and airborne radio 1968 94 32.000 1.6 billion relay communications aircraft. These 1969 94 28,000 1.4 billion KC-135s remained on station for long 1970 91 19,540 888 million periods but could be used for emer- gency refueling if required. 1971 51 14,400 619 million 1972 172 34,700 1.4 billion Awesome Performance Total 88 avg. 179,040 8.2 billion The sheer number of refuelings and quantities of fuel transferred The sheer number of USAF aerial refuelings and the volume of fuel transferred during the Vietnam War was stag- in flight was truly staggering, as this chart shows. gering as indicated in the chart above. By 1973, after nine years and two Curiously, the very success of the aircraft doing the same thing within months of hard flying, these tankers tankers in making a difficult task a few square miles, and the hazard- had flown a total of 911,364 hours seem ordinary resulted in their re- ous situation becomes genuinely during 194,687 sorties.
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