I remember a very, very long takeoff roll when onboard a very well laden KC-135A. We were deploying to Darwen in Australia from Andersen AFB in Guam and had all kinds of maintenance/support personnel and equipment on board. We also will have been pretty well fueled as we were ferrying the B-52Gs to Darwen and all 3 birds were 'fed' en route.
The initial acceleration seemed (from my view through a side window in the back) slightly sluggish but this thing just kept on chugging along whilst it seemed reluctant to take flight. The wind on this day was from the opposite direction to normal so we were taking off in a (roughly) southerly direction rather than the more usual northerly. I'm watching landmarks passing by on the port side - oh look there's the phase hangar, there's the terminal building, there's the transient aircraft ramp, THERE'S THE OLD ALERT RAMP and we're still not up
Soon after passing that and thinking that we'd be rolling onto the perimeter road she gently started to climb. I'm not sure of the length of the runways at Andersen - pretty damn long as it is an emergency landing strip for the shuttle - but on this day they were only just long enough for us or so it seemed from my vantage point.
Thank God for the re-engine programme and the emergence of the 'R' model.
