Atlantic Crossing
- Thread starter MikeD
- Start date
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
Sweet - how difficult is a night mid-air refueling? I had a pretty hard time with it on the NES version of Top Gun back in the day.
More mental than anything, but not too different in reality. -10 has a better director light system, newer, than the -135, but the overall canopy-references are still the same. Makes it easier to have the boom in front of you, IMO; except when the boom-knuckle leaks and the front windscreen gets covered in jet fuel. Plus, with no radar (both the A-10 and F-117), old-school TACAN rejoin was the norm.
Area 5150
Model citizen, Zero discipline
Great pics Mike. In the 1st pic, are you guys in a climb or is that just a weird camera angle? Either way, these are great pics for a little insight of what you guys see.
My 1st CFI was a Lt. Col with the 917th here at KBAD. He was a 10 pilot and he was telling me a story about flying home from Saudi back to KBAD, and he was worried about his appearance once they landed. He stated that he had a heavy 5 o'clock shadow on his face, so he had sometype of water in a bag, laid this bag on top of the panel so the sun would warm it, and he shaved his beard once they crossed into American Airspace. He didn't mind so much that the other 5 guys in his flight were looking a little haggared, however being the flight leader he thought that maybe he should look a little better since the media was all over Barksdale, waiting for them to come home and he knew he would be having to due an news interview.
Great story.
You got any, "Long, flying over the pond" stories and what you guys did to pass the time?
My 1st CFI was a Lt. Col with the 917th here at KBAD. He was a 10 pilot and he was telling me a story about flying home from Saudi back to KBAD, and he was worried about his appearance once they landed. He stated that he had a heavy 5 o'clock shadow on his face, so he had sometype of water in a bag, laid this bag on top of the panel so the sun would warm it, and he shaved his beard once they crossed into American Airspace. He didn't mind so much that the other 5 guys in his flight were looking a little haggared, however being the flight leader he thought that maybe he should look a little better since the media was all over Barksdale, waiting for them to come home and he knew he would be having to due an news interview.
Great story.
You got any, "Long, flying over the pond" stories and what you guys did to pass the time?
That's the deck angle of the KC-10 trying to fly slow enough to refuel us. We're actually in a slight descent.
Lol....
I'd read a book. Yap back and forth on the FM interflight radio. Yap with the tanker crew. Be depressed over the contents of my inflight meal. Be jealous of the tanker crew because they could get up and walk around. Wonder what the tanker crew screwed up or who they pissed off in order to get stuck dragging slow-ass A-10s across the pond. Wasn't a heck of alot to do......or see.
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
Is the A-10 a relatively easy plane to fly compared to faster airplanes?
I'm just curious. With the straight wing and "relatively" slow speed, to the layman (me) it seems like it would be forgiving, easy, but I really don't know. Thus the question.
I'm just curious. With the straight wing and "relatively" slow speed, to the layman (me) it seems like it would be forgiving, easy, but I really don't know. Thus the question.
Yes, was a pretty forgiving airplane. Flew easy and stable. 117 was a little bit of a different story.
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
Will you elaborate? I'm just curious about how it handles, lands, flies, quirks, weirdness, etc?
Area 5150
Model citizen, Zero discipline
Apparently, Mo told me that when he pulled out that straight razor to shave, someone in the flight saw it and told him, "DON'T DO IT Col. Mo... WE ARE ALMOST HOME". Mo told me that the way he was holding the razor to his neck it looked like he was getting ready to commit suicide. lol
Man....read a book. That's cool. I can't imagine having to fly over the Atlantic in a slow A-10, but wish like hell I could say that, "I did that a couple of times".
To bad you didn't have somekind of internet access. So, it was punishment to babysit the 10's across the Atlantic, if you were in a tanker, eh? lol
Area 5150
Model citizen, Zero discipline
I agree. My 1st CFI also flew the 10 and he stated that it was a, "Simple" plane to fly. Now, his definition of simple and mind are totally 2 different thing when it comes to flying. But, he left the F-15 to get into a 10, so.......
Living under KBAD's pattern circle, I see 10's all day long flying over low and slow and at times, skimming the tree tops and haulin arse. But, 3/4 of the time I see them, they are always flying wings up and down and banking hard. Guess it's more fun flying that way than straight. :rawk:
Kind of like a very heavy Piper Lance.....best civilian equivilent I can compare it to. Faster, but still underpowered. Handles especially well low level, again with the great stability provided by the straight wings. Patterns are easy with about a 150 kt downwind speed dirty, and a 130 + fuel + ord final approach speed. Slow flies well (obviously), but I mean with the same stall characteristics as your Cessna/Piper. Can pull instantaneous Gs pretty well, but can't at all sustain them due to rapid energy bleed off.
area5150 said:
Only because it's such slow going was I wondering about the tanker....how'd they get stuck with us? I remember coming back from this one......reverse direction across the Atlantic. Groundspeed 142.
Funny tanker story. When I was in 117 getting ready to cross the Pacific back to CONUS, our KC-10 arrived at our deploy base in Korea the day prior. That evening, we're advised that we can't leave because we have no tanker.....the KC-10s AC was arrested by the SPs for having (IIRC) a bottle of hooch or something onboard that he was taking home, but forgot to declare to Customs? It was something dumb like that, that the morons-to-be would delay a whole re-deploy for.
Area 5150
Model citizen, Zero discipline
Incredible. So, can I assume that the pilots in the taker have horns going off and the yoke shaking like the San Andreas ?
And, what kind of charges do the military dish out for an infraction such as having "HOOCH" and forgetting to clear it thru customs? Surely we are talking about, "Hey don't do that again........NOW, get out there and fire the engines up, we got planes to get home and a mission to complete!!" Right Mike? I would LIKE to think that it might be something simple such as that, however..........it is the military we're talking about. lol
On the KC-10, I can imagine it's sporty.....it sure looks to be. USAFplt on the board here could answer that one better since he flies them. Rocketman99 used to fly -135s, he could give a good take on that end of the refueling op.
tommychuck
New Member
I have to ask, how long does it take to get across the Atlantic in an A-10?
Did you ever start feeling squirrely sitting there like Lindbergh for hours on end and nowhere to go?
Did you ever start feeling squirrely sitting there like Lindbergh for hours on end and nowhere to go?
fish314
Well-Known Member
Refueling an A-10 wasn't that sporty. You may or may not have the flaps down, and you may or may not have to fly in a 300 vvi descent or so, but not particularly a big deal. About the worst of it would be the amount of time it took to cross the pond.... or if you did have the flaps down and you had to do a breakaway it could be easy to overspeed the flaps.
That's from the -135.
intern_mike
E-175 f/o
Man, I remember when I was a kid playing A-10 CUBA for hours. I LOVE that plane.
LoadMasterC141
Well-Known Member
God I love that plane. If I could pick anything to fly, it would be that over anything else. Just a mean but sexyt craft.
Had the privelege of working with an A-10 Driver last year to get him his ATP.
Had the privelege of working with an A-10 Driver last year to get him his ATP.
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