Originally Posted by
WITCHWAY550
I am interjecting with a question. Why do KC-135's transfer in flight between themselves? If not for a certain reason I can't see the logic.
While in the case of this incident, the advantage of a tanker being able to receive fuel is as follows. Tankers often conduct a racetrack pattern when on station. They may get lots of receivers and give all their available fuel to receivers or not get receivers while on station and have excess fuel than they require to get back home. In that case, if the incoming tanker can receive fuel, the outgoing tanker can offload fuel so the incoming tanker has more fuel to off land while on station. Without that extra fuel, they are already down on fuel from the transit to being on station, plus they may not have been able to take off full of fuel to factors such as runway length, temperature etc.