Tales

Close Company

I am sure the following event has occurred more than once but a recent retelling to me by a USAF friend certainly brought the event alive. The scene is a very dark though calm winter’s night over the North Atlantic several hundred klics west of Ireland. A then Strategic Air Command B-52 is looking for its KC-135 tanker link-up in a no-comms, no-lights maximum security rendezvous. Obviously, something has gone wrong as the B-52 cannot locate the tanker anywhere. Finally, out of the gloom, the bomber crew notice a faint silhouette of a large jet shape ahead and above them about where the tanker would be expected to be.

Success at last! The eight-engined B-52 slowly formates immediately behind and below the Stratotanker—still in its lights-out, no-comms configuration—and awaits the flashing of coloured signal lamps from the stern refuelling window of the KC-135 and the lowering of the refuelling boom so as to be able to take on fuel.

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