Wow, that's fucking disgusting. I thought my shower pooping thing was gross but compared to this it's like sesame street.

kyuusei is right about AF planes needing the higher transfer rate, the probe and drogue method transfers about 150 gallons per minute while the boom transfers at nearly 900 gallons per minute.

There's at least one exception to that. The Navy's E-6 Mercury (better known as TACAMO) refuels via boom. And this fun little guy has the appropriate markings and shape for a refueling receptacle.

Guam rules and even though I got kicked out of that all-you-can-eat sushi-go-round for being a loud-and-drunk-sack-of-crap, I have every intention of going back.

I don't have much to add, you actually covered all of the things I had thought about when I watched that strange Sprey diatribe but I wanted to just emphasize something about the low observable stuff.

Thank you for that. I really appreciate it!

It is pretty crazy. I'm still not sure how it works. I think it has something to do with being loud and/or money.

I must be lost and must have accidentally posted in the illegal war section with my stories of enthusiastic murder. No, wait, I don't remember saying any of that. I think I need your help identifying what I said exactly. Unless this is completely unrelated and you didn't actually read anything and you are just…

During that time, the crews wore parachutes, I think because of the less than reliable nature of the engines, but the idea of having to bail out in the event of the shit hitting the fan in such a manner was probably a big part of it. After all, during WW3, the gas belongs to the guys dropping the bombs, regardless of…

Sorry! I didn't mean to confuse you there. That is the primary method of refueling, with the rigid boom and no hoses.

I think he did the less popular and unsanctioned "Fuck, fuck, fuck, go go go! Shit!" And even if the video makes it look worse than it really was, I would feel better if they did that sort of thing at a mile away than at precontact.

Why? There's a toilet in the plane (kinda).

My stomach sank when I saw that video for the first time. I've had a couple like that, one was a C-17 that climbed straight up after disconnect, barely avoiding our tail, and an F-15 that tried to climb into boom pod, I assume so that the pilot could shake my hand.

Any "stealth" airplane, no matter how tough, has an extremely fragile, crazy expensive, low-observable coat of paint. The boom on the KC-135 weighs about 1600 lbs. Put the two together and you're gonna have a bad time. I'm extremely grateful I never had to explain how I put a $500k scratch in someone's paint.

Is there a problem the A-10 can't solve?

I usually didn't listen to music while refueling. Actually, I would lay and scream the lyrics from songs I liked so loud, I could hear them over my noise-cancelling, noiseblocker headset. All because nobody could hear me.

I see kc135boom got in here before I could notice, but I wanted to elaborate a little on a couple things.

Once contact is made between the boom nozzle and the receiver aircraft's receptacle, it completes a circuit between the two planes' air refueling systems. This triggers what are called toggles in the receiver receptacle which latch onto the nozzle, holding it in place, and also triggers the signal in the tanker to…

Pattern work actually never bothered me that much. I volunteered for the pattern-only's as a favor for other booms so I could get out of weekend flights or even weekend alpha alert. Nothing like killing a weekend sitting in building with terrible cell reception.

A 12 hour mission would burn through about 120k pounds, not gallons, and the maximum offload for such a mission would be restricted to the maximum weight capacity of the KC-135, which would be about 200k pounds of fuel, leaving around 80k pounds for the receiver. A typical mission would only last 4-6 hours, so a full…