WEBVTT

00:01.374 --> 00:04.707
(airplane engine sound)

00:07.930 --> 00:09.360
- Any opportunity to make history,

00:09.360 --> 00:11.080
do an elephant walk like this,

00:11.080 --> 00:12.340
it would be a great opportunity

00:12.340 --> 00:16.180
for the 117th, for Maintenance and Ops,

00:16.180 --> 00:17.750
and the wing as a whole,

00:17.750 --> 00:20.090
because everybody's a
part of it, you know?

00:20.090 --> 00:21.030
- Anything more than three is

00:21.030 --> 00:22.390
going to be a unique challenge

00:22.390 --> 00:25.445
to get all those airplanes
in the right position,

00:25.445 --> 00:29.060
with the kind of airspace
that's going to be required.

00:29.060 --> 00:30.360
- Well, today we watched history

00:30.360 --> 00:32.340
for the 117th Air Fueling Wing.

00:32.340 --> 00:35.080
We witnessed for the first time ever,

00:35.080 --> 00:37.000
a 8 Ship Formation departure

00:37.000 --> 00:39.110
led by Wing Commander Colonel Grant.

00:39.110 --> 00:40.480
- You saw something in Birmingham

00:40.480 --> 00:42.370
that has never happened before.

00:42.370 --> 00:44.250
Eight AKC-135's leaving the ground

00:44.250 --> 00:45.570
in less than four minutes.

00:45.570 --> 00:47.887
On top of that, we were exercising

00:47.887 --> 00:50.490
some of our operational war plans,

00:50.490 --> 00:54.340
and in that comes a guarantee

00:54.340 --> 00:55.173
of our readiness.

00:55.173 --> 00:57.910
- You can get more fuel
in the air together,

00:57.910 --> 01:00.280
but also, you got to
plan for having multiple

01:00.280 --> 01:02.860
booms in the air if one of them breaks,

01:02.860 --> 01:04.620
especially if you're dragging fighters

01:04.620 --> 01:06.400
across the ocean, for example.

01:06.400 --> 01:07.830
It's not always just a function of fuel.

01:07.830 --> 01:09.160
A lot of times, it's a function of having

01:09.160 --> 01:10.550
redundancy with the booms because

01:10.550 --> 01:11.880
there's only one per airplane.

01:11.880 --> 01:13.630
- Such events that could drive

01:13.630 --> 01:16.760
this sort of scenario
could be an act of God

01:16.760 --> 01:19.030
catastrophe coming toward
the Birmingham area,

01:19.030 --> 01:21.940
or just any type of
immanent threat to the base

01:21.940 --> 01:23.240
and its local populous, we'd want

01:23.240 --> 01:24.570
to get all those airplanes off the ground

01:24.570 --> 01:25.780
as fast as possible.

01:25.780 --> 01:27.810
- Something like that just
does not happen over night,

01:27.810 --> 01:29.750
but a lot of planning went into it,

01:29.750 --> 01:31.840
and a lot of coordination
went into it as well.

01:31.840 --> 01:33.840
There's fingerprints of 1,100 people

01:33.840 --> 01:35.280
on that project yesterday.

01:35.280 --> 01:37.070
It's not just the pilots, it's not just

01:37.070 --> 01:38.790
the maintainers, it's the people

01:38.790 --> 01:40.733
that are supporting all the folks

01:40.733 --> 01:42.040
that are making that happen,

01:42.040 --> 01:43.690
and there's a lot of folks well outside

01:43.690 --> 01:44.860
of the 117th.

01:44.860 --> 01:46.130
Our aircraft control folks,

01:46.130 --> 01:47.440
our Birmingham Atlanta Center,

01:47.440 --> 01:50.242
when you're putting eight
KC-135 heavy aircraft

01:50.242 --> 01:55.242
into the Atlanta Center airspace midday,

01:55.540 --> 01:56.703
it's a big deal.

01:56.703 --> 01:59.620
- It's kind of cool as far
as the preparation needed

01:59.620 --> 02:01.700
to get every single jet ready.

02:01.700 --> 02:03.660
All jets gassed, and it shows

02:03.660 --> 02:05.886
our full mission capability here.

02:05.886 --> 02:08.303
(jet sounds)

02:16.766 --> 02:19.599
(take off sounds)

02:28.280 --> 02:30.000
- We started up 32 jet engines

02:30.000 --> 02:31.960
and if you count our
auxiliary power units,

02:31.960 --> 02:33.090
that was 48 engines,

02:33.090 --> 02:35.080
and they all kicked off without a hitch,

02:35.080 --> 02:36.840
and we got started in record time,

02:36.840 --> 02:39.730
so I would venture to say it couldn't

02:39.730 --> 02:41.320
have gone any smoother.

02:41.320 --> 02:43.120
- My understanding of the old record

02:43.120 --> 02:45.300
of getting the largest
number of aircraft airborne

02:45.300 --> 02:47.019
was five previously,

02:47.019 --> 02:50.170
and so when we saw eight on the schedule,

02:50.170 --> 02:51.440
we thought we could get some good training

02:51.440 --> 02:53.010
out of this and hopefully,

02:53.010 --> 02:54.020
if we can get six airborne,

02:54.020 --> 02:55.654
that beats the record.

02:55.654 --> 02:56.761
If we get all eight airborne,

02:56.761 --> 02:57.960
I don't know that anybody would be able

02:57.960 --> 02:59.960
to touch it ever again.