Originally Posted by
gums
Salute!
@ cog....
Well, you follow the procedure that the geese do. Just watch a migration formation and see the lead goose change positions and a new one takes over for awhile, then another and so forth. Dem geese ain't dumb!
My tanker buddies tell me that refueling Air Force one and other big planes "pushes" them due to the "bow wave".
In the final analysis, it is actually possible to get "help" from a buddy to reduce fuel flow or even stay up due to an engine loss. But you need to be fairly close and have done it before when not under duress. Of course, then there's "Pardo's Push" as a last resort.
Gums sends...
We got a little nudge from the B-52s...enough to be noticeable. Basically nothing, from another -135. Nose is too pointy. But a C-141 had a significant bow wave, with that broad nose, and the C-5 was like wintertime at Steamer Lane; a great big wave. My 19-year-old Boom Operator gave me very accurate range calls as a C-5 moved in, and I would give little anticipatory bursts of trim, based on his calls. The old autopilot would often kick off, with C-5s, so I just did it all manually.
Another neat thing that the Old Boeing did was design the -135 and the B-52 to work together aerodynamically. The B-52 wingtips were outside of our downwash and vortices. If the Buff moved right, he had more wing outside the downwash on the right side, and the plane naturally wanted to ease back to the left. I wouldn't be surprised if the combo of the two airplanes wasn't a little more fuel efficient...with 12 motors running, I don't think we would have noticed much. But if 55 feet is an optimum distance, we were right in that range (not counting the boom, which of course was touching the other airplane).
Squawk was a pretty simple matter. Lead tanker squawked, anyone on the boom or the wing went STBY, and the farthest trailer behind also squawked. At times we had five tankers in trail, each with a flock of receivers. The formation would be more than 5 miles long. Lots of metal between those two transponder returns.