Raptor in Hawaii

Why would the ANG receive a cutting edge plane? I thought they got the hand-me-downs.

 

Tankers and fighters cruise at about the same speed and actually fly in formation to their destination, refueling as they go. I flew with KC-10 tankers from RAF Lakenheath, UK all the way to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield. The fighters refuel multiple times, trying at all times to maintain enough fuel to make landfall in case they or the tanker have a problem and the fighter cannot take fuel. It makes no difference who takes off first, but the fighters usually do and sometimes have an airborn spare. If all the primary aircraft are mission ready, the spare returns to base. Taking off first allows inflight checks to be performed and your wingman to look you over for damage to determine who goes and who returns.

The F-22As assigned to the Hawaii guard unit are in an ideal location to reinforce Pacific Air Force, to whom they are assigned. Having them forward deployed to Hickham AFB makes it much easier to support operations in the Far East. The flight from the California coast to Hawaii is actually the longest normally flown route without an alternate landing location, ~2100 nm, with no place else to go. That works out to about 4-6 hours of flight time depending on inflight winds. Prevailing inflight winds are from the west.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

That was years ago. It's pretty balanced nowadays and common for them to have front-line aircraft and other assets.

In the past, the Pacific was protected by F-15s at Kadena, Japan which may no longer be an option.

For more information on the ANG see Total Force Structure

Also, the F-35 is expected to be assigned to ANG units as well.

Air Force officials announce candidate bases for joint strike fighter

 

In the past, that was true.



Reagan began to change everything.

Today, the Guard pulls it's own weight. You can find both the Air and Army Guard, all over Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the ANG is more effective, at performing the assigned mission.

Unfortunately, the days of the manned fighter are coming to an end. Quite a few ANG units, are losing a manned flying mission. Today, any cockpit job is good. Drones and other b.s. jobs, are now taking over the manned flying missions.


I imagine flying a F-22 Raptor in the HIANG, is about the best job on the planet.
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Raptors have been making frequent deployments to Kadena and to Guam; they say that these are part of normal rotations, due to the inadequate numbers of aircraft that will be purchased. I think that the recent saber-rattling in Pyongyang probably has had some influence in the deployments as well.

I'll say one thing: any request for LM engineers to go to Hickam on TDY will get much more interest than Elmendorf!!

 

Certainly one of them I'll agree!!

 

Well Taz, as the tanker guy I really like the fighters to take off first. It's a real bummer when I take off first with 185000 lbs of fuel and then find out that one or two of the fighters cnx. In this scenario I have to figure out what to do with 110000 of JP8 before I can land.

 

Jim- I have done it both ways. Depends on where the tankers are based and where you are based. For most of your deployments, it sounds like both are from the same base. On all the deployments I have flown, there were airborne spares, so a fighter or two crapping out had no impact on the tankers. I did mention the fighters usually take off first.

You must be flying a KC-10 if you could have that much JP left after a deployment. Either that or escorting a two ship or four ship. I have never been involved in a mission like that. All our deployments were at least 8-12 aircraft, usually more. The deployment to Desert Shield was 28 aircraft and we returned 12 at a time, but were not escorted. There were airborne spares for just about all the deployments.

I do not envy you PACAF types with all that ocean.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I can always count on Taz to answer the tanker questions when I'm gone, Thanks Terry! He is right, 99% of the time the fighters take off before the tanker for several reasons to include, making sure all of the fighters get off the ground and that their systems are working correctly. Also, if the fighters are broken or have to RTB, it's alot easier and friendlier for the earth for them to dump gas and come back, rather than the tanker dump a whole bunch more gas and have to RTB. Also, the fighters will take off, join up, and then when we are airborne, they will find us and join up. The fighters have air to air radar (we don't), which makes it much easier for them to find us, than us to have to find them.

The Hawaii ANG F-22's are actually going to be an associate unit with an active duty squadron, so it won't be just strictly ANG guys flying them. The C-17's that the Hawaii ANG fly are set up the same way.

 

On the flip side, it is the same at Langley with the VA ANG. The VA ANG, also flies the F-22, with the active duty squadron. A USAFR squadron in Alaska, has the same working agreement, with the USAF Raptors at Elmendorf.

I believe at Holloman, a USAFR unit, also shares the airplanes with the A.D. USAF ?


The ANG is superb. A real bargain for the American taxpayer !

 

Yep, you're correct. Langley does share it's jets with the VAANG. They lost their F-16's in Richmond and set up an associate unit at Langley. Elmendorf and Holloman both have reserve units, but the unit at Holloman is an active reserve unit from what I understand. They were the F-16 RTU reserve unit at Luke until they were shut down, then moved to Holloman. They had to do something with that place after they lost the F-117's......

 

New Mexico is a great place to fly fighters, one of the best in the US. We are the 5th largest state, but have less than 2M people and most of them are concentrated along the Rio Grande valley. I flew for 6 years out of Cannon AFB, and although Clovis is not a hotbed of cultural activity, it was a great place to fly fighters.

The Tacos (150th) here just lost their fighters, though, and are hunting for a mission. Part of AF belt tightening.


By the way, which would you tanker guys like to fly better, a piece of crap Airbus or a new 767 tanker? Not that I am prejudiced, mind you.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Personally for me, most of my time and experience is in the KC-10, in which the airplane and air refueling boom is NOT a Boeing design, so I'm not prejudice either. I would like to see a system and platform that works and that's it. Both the Airbus and Boeing design are RAROS designs (Remote Air Refueling Operator Operator Station) so there will no more days of the boom operator sitting in the back of tanker looking through the window at the receiver. I think this is a BIG mistake! The loss of real time situational awareness from looking through a video monitor, to me, is huge. The Boeing design incorporates the MCD KC-10 boom design, while the Airbus boom is not. The KC-10 boom, as you probably know, has a greater refueling position envelope than the traditional -135 boom. This would be my only preference if I had to choose one from an air refueling perspective. From a mission perspective, I think they are pretty close in trade off's.

It will be interesting to see who wins the contract in November. The bids had to be in by 12:00 yesterday, so let the mud slinging begin!

 

Interesting that Antonov threw there name into the hat at the last min.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/07/09/344276/usaf-receives-three-proposals-for-kc-x-but-antonov-team-admits.html