My first ever air to air refueling was off one of the BRAND NEW KC-10s.

Another instance of feeling older.

My first job was at MDD in Long Beach, working as an engineer on the DC10 final assembly line. That included building the first KC10s.

My first ever air to air refueling was off one of the BRAND NEW KC-10s.

Another instance of feeling older.

Dang! I still think of them as the "new" tanker.

KC-10s were my first assignment out of Undergraduate Pilot Training, flew them at KBAD and KRWI. I got there early enough that we still had the white tops and, back then, we could do anything with those aircraft.

Flying into Mogadishu, Somalia in '93, we came in over the water at 300kts and 300ft til we went idle/boards/configure on speed to turn a 3/4 mi final that had just been strafed by a 160th SOAR Little Bird. We'd hang out overhead until the mortars stopped, around sunrise when the helos could go out and target the mortar teams. Takeoff was the reverse, leveling off at 300' and turning out immediately over the water.

During Rwanda, all of the airlift was depleting the fuel supplies in central Africa, so we flew out of Harare, Zimbabwe and either orbited over Goma and Kigali to act as the reliability tanker (12-14 hours of orbiting) or we landed in Entebbe, Uganda at maximum landing weight (436k from what I remember) and defueled into the bladders down to our bingo fuel.

If you could fly the KC-10 well, you could fly anything (partial proof is the fact that I went on to be mission/instructor qual'd 8 different airframes during my active duty career). It was both challenging and fun to fly. 45 minutes on the boom taking on close to 300k lbs of fuel was not uncommon; nothing says pressure like being in the middle of a fighter drag over the ocean, in the weather, with 6 fighters on the wing watching, knowing that if you don't get the gas, the mission gets aborted and everyone gets to divert. There was the time my crew "saved" 2 x B-1's on a Global Power mission loaded with 48 bombs each that had been given the green light to cross the pond despite the fact that all European alternates were 600' RVR or worse; took off out of Mildenhall, chased them down as they were diverting to Leuchars, got a radar skin paint on them and rejoined with 500' vertical spacing in IMC, and got them their gas (80k lbs each) so they could finish the mission. There were also Ops over Bosnia, countless fighter drags across pretty much all the oceans, numerous cargo runs to locales that included Diego Garcia, Guam, Tokyo, Okinawa, Singapore, Djibouti, Kenya, Bahrain, and hundreds of other locations. If it was on the news, we were there. I couldn't have asked for a better first assignment in the USAF.

Funny thing is that my daughter is flying KC-46s, the KC-10's replacement, in the same squadron/group that I was assigned to, despite the fact that she was INSISTENT that she was going to forge her own path and do it "better" than I did!

Kool! Your a master of the R-4360!

I was a crew chief on the KC-135A straight pipe, water wagon/lead sled. On my first TDY out to Hickam there was a National Guard KC-97 on the ramp.

When I was finishing up my enlistment they were only just talking about bringing on the KC-10.

Years later flew with some PFE's on the Classic that were former Engineers on the KC-10. All they would do was bitch about how they hated the 747 compared to the KC-10.

When were you are KBAD? I did my A-10 RTU there with the 917th. I was there from April to August 1982

And BTW, getting in and out of Mog is still interesting.

Kool! Your a master of the R-4360!

I was a crew chief on the KC-135A straight pipe, water wagon/lead sled. On my first TDY out to Hickam there was a National Guard KC-97 on the ramp.[/quote]

What year was that? I was there for a couple of weeks in summer 1975. We had a trip there for a few days. On the return trip we had a scavenger pump fail about two hours out and returned to Hickam. We had to wait a few more days while an engine was shipped to us.

1993 til they were BRAC'd in '94

As far at the Mog.....like this (ours looked like the last 90deg of his circle, but at 300' vs 100' and 3/4nm final vs 1/4nm)?: https://youtu.be/BCWbjsynDZ0

Mid 1977 My first TDY. An F-4 fighter drag to PGUA, was based @ KSUU, first stop PHIK, then PGUA, RODN, PGUA, PHIK, KSUU. Fun times for someone who was still technically a teenager.

Thanks for bringing back the memories of that little trip.

1993 til they were BRAC'd in '94

As far at the Mog.....like this (ours looked like the last 90deg of his circle, but at 300' vs 100' and 3/4nm final vs 1/4nm)?: https://youtu.be/BCWbjsynDZ0