KC-135 tanker flying low

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - KC-135 tanker flying low

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:15:19 AM EDT

This refueling tanker has been circling around my area for almost an hour now. I see it go by about every ten minutes. I estimate it's altitude to be between 1500-2000 feet.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:16:51 AM EDT

[#1]

Quoted:
This refueling tanker has been circling around my area for almost an hour now. I see it go by about every ten minutes. I estimate it's altitude to be between 1500-2000 feet.

Ok.. get yer 50 and shoot it down?

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:16:59 AM EDT

[#2]

Training, they have to get their flight hours in so they fly in circles.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:20:22 AM EDT

[#3]

Quoted:
Training, they have to get their flight hours in so they fly in circles.

Why so low? Seems like a waste of fuel if that's the case.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:20:41 AM EDT

[#4]

A 135 just did a flyover of Busch stadium after the National Anthem. Are you in the St. Louis area?

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:22:21 AM EDT

[#5]

Man they are hurting when they get the 135's doing flyovers....

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:23:32 AM EDT

[#6]

Quoted:
Man they are hurting when they get the 135's doing flyovers....

They use KC-135s all the time at PNC Park and Heinz Field in Pittsburgh because there's a PA ANG refueling wing like 15 miles away.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:23:43 AM EDT

[#7]

IIRC, tankers fly a racetrack pattern. He probably isn't just circling.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:24:03 AM EDT

[#8]

Quoted:
Man they are hurting when they get the 135's doing flyovers....

They're on a beer run over Busch stadium.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:24:46 AM EDT

[#9]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Man they are hurting when they get the 135's doing flyovers....

They use KC-135s all the time at PNC Park and Heinz Field in Pittsburgh because there's a PA ANG refueling wing like 15 miles away.

There is an ANG refueling wing at Scott AFB about 30 miles from St. Louis, probably the same situation.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:27:41 AM EDT

[#10]

Quoted:
A 135 just did a flyover of Busch stadium after the National Anthem. Are you in the St. Louis area?

Ah.. yep.

Been flying around for awhile though...

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:28:53 AM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:
IIRC, tankers fly a racetrack pattern. He probably isn't just circling.

I understand that, but they don't typically refuel aircraft at 2k AGL.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:37:20 AM EDT

[#12]

You havent seen anything until you see a B52 do a track pattern at 1500-2000 feet. The suckers are HUGE. And loud with the 8 engines running. Lots of black smoke too.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:41:29 AM EDT

[#13]

Quoted:
Quoted:
IIRC, tankers fly a racetrack pattern. He probably isn't just circling.

I understand that, but they don't typically refuel aircraft at 2k AGL.

Refueling Helo's maybe?

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:48:59 AM EDT

[#14]

Quoted:
You havent seen anything until you see a B52 do a track pattern at 1500-2000 feet. The suckers are HUGE. And loud with the 8 engines running. Lots of black smoke too.

Few years back I was standing outside our locker room before a football game. Out of nowhere a B-52 pops down out of the clouds, levels off, then proceeds to climb back out at a VERY steep angle. This thing couldn't have been more than 500 feet off the ground when it came down. Found out later it was refueling and had some sort of trouble when it came off the boom.

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:53:53 AM EDT

[#15]

OH NO!

He's there to refuel the Looking Glass planes out of
Offutt! The balloon's gone up. I'm heading down to my
bunker. Godspeed, everyone!

"O beautiful for spacious skies..."

Posted: 10/2/2005 10:54:13 AM EDT

[#16]

They have that B52 that crashed with the hotshot pilot. Just drove right into the ground on its side. Big Boom.

Posted: 10/2/2005 11:26:59 AM EDT

[#17]

Low level training. Where I grew up in NH we had C-5's come screaming over out house at about 100' above the trees on occasion. Our F-16 do it all the time...but than again they are a lot smaller!

-Derek

Posted: 10/2/2005 12:01:22 PM EDT

[#18]

My older brother got scared half to death by a B1 in the Panhandle of Texas a few years back. He was working on a natural gas well in the middle of nowhere when it happened. He said the plane was flying so low that he could feel the air compress as it flew over. He said it was going so fast that he didn't hear it untill after it had already passed overhead. Needless to say he was mighty impressed!

Posted: 10/2/2005 12:06:14 PM EDT

[#19]

Quoted:
Low level training. Where I grew up in NH we had C-5's come screaming over out house at about 100' above the trees on occasion. Our F-16 do it all the time...but than again they are a lot smaller!

-Derek

Yep, I grew up under the approach path of Pease AFB in NH. The FB-111s and KC-135s flew low enough that you could make out the numbers on them.

Posted: 10/2/2005 12:21:24 PM EDT

[#20]

There is a decommisioned USAF base by my house (about7 miles away--Williams) and they still fly .mil traffic in and out of there all the time.

The 135s come LOW over my house every once in a while. I have to watch for them while I am flying my RC stuff--as soon as I hear engines I dive my planes for the deck.

Posted: 10/2/2005 1:45:55 PM EDT

[#21]

Quoted:
Training, they have to get their flight hours in so they fly in circles.

yup. saw a few of the C130s from NFAFB while I was out shooting yesterday

Posted: 10/2/2005 1:52:36 PM EDT

[#22]

I got to see all sorts of wild (and fast) low level flying in my area during the 1980's and up until the mid 90's. I lived directly underneath a military training route (MTR 075). Got to see B-52G's and H's, B-1B's, FB-111's, ANG RF-4C's, and AC-130s. Nothing like seeing those planes pass overhead 400 ft off the deck.

It's too bad the radar bomb site they used at the time was closed. I miss all those military aircraft.

Posted: 10/2/2005 2:40:53 PM EDT

[#23]

Where's the pics!?!?

Posted: 10/2/2005 2:51:04 PM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
IIRC, tankers fly a racetrack pattern. He probably isn't just circling.

I understand that, but they don't typically refuel aircraft at 2k AGL.

Refueling Helo's maybe?

No.
C-130 hercules with refueling pods refuel helicopters.
Helicopters can't go as fast as a KC-135 and a KC-135 can't go as slow
as a helicopter.

Posted: 10/2/2005 2:58:21 PM EDT

[#25]

Quoted:
They have that B52 that crashed with the hotshot pilot. Just drove right into the ground on its side. Big Boom.

Czar 52 was the flight name.

Lt. Col. "Bud" Holland was the pilot. He had a history of flying the BUFF outside its envelope and pushing it beyond it's limits. It wasn't a matter of 'if'', only 'when'.

The mishap, however, didn't just happen. There were years of incompetent leadership that contributed to the mishap. One of the guys who died that day, the co-pilot who is the one shown ejecting, was in the cockpit because he refused to let any of his subordinates fly with the pilot again. Since leadership had failed, he took their place. While he managed to get out of the aircraft, he did not survive. He was either killed by the subsequent crash and fireball/debris or on impact, I don't remember which.

This happened at Fairchild AFB in WA in June of 1994. It occured during a practice the day before a scheduled airshow. Had it happened the next day, there is no telling how many people on the ground may have been injured or killed. IIRC, the plane hit very near a nuke storage area. I think that is what the fenced compound in the background of the photo is.

Read all about it here: Darker Shades of Blue: A Case Study in Failed Leadership

Ironically, the airshow had been scheduled to help with base morale after an airman went on a shooting spree a few days earlier.

Posted: 10/2/2005 3:04:40 PM EDT

[#26]

Quoted:
Lt. Col. "Bud" Holland was the pilot.

I was shocked they didn't fire him beforehand! He was always hot dogging the B-52's.

Posted: 10/2/2005 3:10:23 PM EDT

[#27]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Lt. Col. "Bud" Holland was the pilot.
I was shocked they didn't fire him beforehand! He was always hot dogging the B-52's.

Read the link. It was known by EVERYONE for years. Even the officers kids at the base school who once got in a fight over whose dad would be the first to roll a B52. There were many documented cases of him pushing the plane past its limits, outside its envelope, and certainly outside of safe flying conditions.

Here is a video of the actual crash: www.alexisparkinn.com/photogallery/Videos/B-52%20Crash.mpg

I have the video somewhere of him crossing the ridgeline at the Yakima bombing range at 30 feet!!!

I'll see if I can find it.

Sorry for the hijack.

Posted: 10/2/2005 4:51:05 PM EDT

[#28]

They do that all the time down here at the Huntsville (AL) airport. They are called touch and go's. Even though they don't "land", the airport gets a couple hundred or couple thousand dollars per TNG, pretty easy money for them.

What's more interesting to see are the Special Ops AC-13o's out of FL doing them, three aircraft in a row.

Merlin

Posted: 10/2/2005 4:53:08 PM EDT

[#29]

Quoted:
They do that all the time down here at the Huntsville (AL) airport. They are called touch and go's. Even though they don't "land", the airport gets a couple hundred or couple thousand dollars per TNG, pretty easy money for them.

What's more interesting to see are the Special Ops AC-13o's out of FL doing them, three aircraft in a row.

Merlin

Exactly. Touch and goes in the pattern..... THe pattern for a large airframe like that is pretty damn big.

Posted: 10/2/2005 4:55:40 PM EDT

[#30]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Training, they have to get their flight hours in so they fly in circles.

Why so low? Seems like a waste of fuel if that's the case.

Why are you listening to a 13 year old kid? He doesn't know.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - KC-135 tanker flying low

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