{"id":249,"date":"2010-08-25T04:00:18","date_gmt":"2010-08-25T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joeclarksblog.wordpress.com\/?p=249"},"modified":"2011-06-24T17:43:19","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T21:43:19","slug":"passing-gas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/?p=249","title":{"rendered":"Passing\u00a0Gas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Tanking off a KS-3 Viking<\/p><\/div>\n

A pilot spends his or her entire life avoiding other traffic (code for not hitting another airplane in mid-air). And then one day, he or she becomes a military pilot. The next thing you know, someone says, \u201cGo up and hit the tanker.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In radio parlance, Navy pilots call this \u201cTexaco\u201d and to be honest, it really is quite amazing. \u00a0After finding the tanker and getting plugged in, it is truly great to be flying along watching the gas gauge go up. You can literally fly forever and never come down.\u00a0 What a wonderful thought…\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before being able to enjoy increasing gas quantities, there is the little problem of finding the tanker and \u201cgetting aboard.\u201d After that, the next thing to do is \u201cget into the basket.\u201d\u00a0 Then, it is merely the task of holding your jet in the proper position to put the correct pressure on the hose to assure fuel transfer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What could be simpler?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, a lot of things to tell the truth. Especially if the tanking evolution we\u2019re talking about takes place in the dark. \u00a0At night. \u00a0In the clouds. \u00a0With turbulence. \u00a0And lightning. \u00a0Oh yea, and the deck is pitching and rolling the way a 1970s waterbed would if Elvis Presley and Rodney Dangerfield were engaged in a serious wrestling match on top of it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, there are just a few little challenges involved in passing gas at altitude.\u00a0 The amazing thing about it is the apparent ease with which flight crews accomplish this feat daily and nightly.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

June 27, 1923<\/p><\/div>\n

The Army Air Services flew the first in-flight refueling mission on June 27, 1923 by a team of Army aviators, Captain Lowell H. Smith, and Lieutenants John Richter, Virgil Hine, and Frank Seifert. \u00a0The aircraft were slow-moving DH-4B biplanes of the Army Air Services.\u00a0 Basically, the crew of the higher biplane passed a fuel hose to the lower and the gas flowed by way of gravity via the standard fueling port.\u00a0 This is probably why the Air Force still does it that way to this day; they plug into the receiver aircraft while in the Navy, the receiver plugs into \u201cthe basket\u201d of the tanker.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While they had the concept as early as 1923, the military did not start real air-to-air refueling operations until after World War II.\u00a0 Korea was the first conflict in which aerial refueling played an important part, and by the time the Vietnam War rolled around, the military guys had the process well tamed.\u00a0 They also had the equipment refined to the point that for the most part, it was reliable \u2013 the majority of the time.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it sometimes fails, or breaks, or a nervous pilot can incite a failure.\u00a0 Then it becomes a real challenge trying to either get the airplane down, to the destination, or come up with an alternate plan involving a lot less fuel than on the tanking plan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The key?\u00a0 Just be smooth, turn off your radar so you don\u2019t fry the tanker pilot, sit back, and relax.\u00a0 It\u2019s all good, and once you\u2019re in the basket, you can stay up there forever.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

-30-<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2010 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pilot spends his or her entire life avoiding other traffic (code for not hitting another airplane in mid-air). And then one day, he or she becomes a military pilot. The next thing you know, someone says, \u201cGo up and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[299,433,434,481,842,1146,1640,1844,1933,2096,2390,2505,2734,3515,4174,4320],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-flying-2","tag-air-force","tag-army-air-services","tag-army-aviators","tag-avoiding-traffic","tag-challenges","tag-dh-4b-biplanes","tag-getting-aboard","tag-hit-the-tanker","tag-in-flight-refueling","tag-korea","tag-military-pilot","tag-navy","tag-passing-gas","tag-texaco","tag-vietnam","tag-world-war-ii"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3448,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions\/3448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}