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Hey man, numbered air forces are expensive to maintain.

Shhhh. Those Missions pay the bills.

Uhh...America is broke.

Let me guess... Brand new co with the ink still wet on his MR folder?

The term Gucci originates from the issued flight bags the original -10 guys (circa Barksdale/March/Seymour etc.) carried with them to the airplane. At the time...the shoe fit. From a space available reference: no glass...manual TOLD, airplanes beat to $h!t, smelled like piss and only 'hot cuz they're deployed'...a lot. Still the most comfortable military airplane I've been on, felt like an airline flight. Hate to hear this might be going...from a planner's perspective this airplane has an extraordinary ability to save CAS in the AOR. It was always the 'best' choice for the CAOC when you needed a plan to support navy/air force/heavies...to include the mighty herk. -130 crew stuck in Lajes for 5 days due to winds...-10 crew came through, drank heavily, and then offered to hang with us to refuel after 30 minutes of flight to get the tanks full...came through the next day unbeknownst to their mom at TACC...got us home. Very good dudes.

Do you have experience refueling as a heavy on the boom or as a fighter on a drogue?

Sure it is!

It's not nice to talk about the C-17 community like that.

Being a -135 ANG/AFRC bum is a sweet gig.

While I agree it's stupid to cut the KC-10...that is the only one they "can" cut. There aren't enough -10's to retiree the -135. It would seem there are enough -135's to replace the -10. I've suffered from a KC-10 stand down day while deployed and guess what? The -135 covered all the refuelings that day. I asked if the Deid could take a down day. Answer...nope.

So how does an older platform with less capabilities save the AF money in the long run when you're going to need twice the airplanes to provide the same amount of gas? Not to mention that when we Navy/Marine types need a tanker the -135 is either boom or drogue, but can't do both. KC-10? Boom or basket, they both have the gas AND the ability to give to anyone who needs it. We Marines can be pretty stupid WRT some stuff, but holy hell, this is really short sighted. Though what can you expect from the same people who got out of the EA business, and left it to the Navy and Marine Corps (which is ridiculous, why the F do we really need EA squadron in the Marine Corps? I have yet to hear a truly convincing argument) Hornet bros around the world agree - give us a KC-10 over a -135 any day. I know Hornet dudes who would rather take a shitty weather night trap than try to plug the Iron Maiden. I know of a Harrier squadron that will outright refuse a training sortie if they have to have -135 support.

KC-10... More give than the -135 and no Iron Maiden. Why the hell would the AF get rid of them?!

Perhaps General Chang and his cohorts have taken to using reverse psychology on the crew dawgs to spread their message of assimilation: "Wearing your PT gear in accordance with AFI 36-2903 is so ghey", "Rated officers who aren't AAD complete by winging are sooooo kewl!", "Someone said I needed to complete my Info Assurance CBT so the squadron would be more green for the exercise and I was totally like ORLY?" Very tricky

Read the reg, don't listen to CCs who guess or assume, apply.

Ok, no shit, when I saw the title to this thread I was thinking something along the lines of "Heritage" or "Air Force Pride" month...not sexual preference pride month. This is out of control. Please, Liquid, someone explain to me how the Air Force intends to rid the service of inappropriate sexual talk and behavior in the workplace when we now have an entire month celebrating someone's SEXual preference. I don't care if anyone is gay...I don't have to know it. They can do their jobs just fine without me knowing their sexual preference. If you're celebrating your sexuality at the workplace AND the Air Force or DoD is sanctioning it, then you are in fact endorsing inappropriate sexual talk and behavior at the workplace. There are no exceptions to those who prefer the homosexual lifestyle. 69 is not ok but 66 is? I'm sure 69 happens to be a sexual preference to a lot of people...but we don't have to express it at work an entire month out of the year. UFB!

And you're not going to include a picture? WTF is wrong with you?

"I have 50 cats because I have 10,000 rats, Dee! There's a reason I do the things that I do."

It's as simple as that. I really don't understand why people can't wrap their mind around this. Yet, you still do it...every fucking time!

Alright, I'll engage. The -135 has some advantages over the -10: they have a datalink, they've got their GATM upgrade done, and there are 6 times as many, so they've got a lot of booms in the air. Otherwise, here is why the KC-10 remains the best tanker in the world and why its crews are so damn proud of it: 1. We're the only tanker (existing or planned) that can support a real long-range fighter movement capability. Considering the future Pacific shift, this is vital. If we're ever going to try running an air war out of Guam (IAW the RAND analysis from a few years back) we'll need some pretty gigantic offloads to move a 2-4 ship of large air superiority fighters 3 hrs west and back. Boom sequencing won't be an issue. Ref 1986/2011 Libya ops. 2. Global strike and airdrop require even greater offloads. KC-10s actively train for and execute these missions; moving large aircraft across the world nonstop will be greatly degraded/impossible without us. 3. Every KC-10 can refuel any allied jet on every mission. Any future conflict will be joint AF/USN/allies and real-time flexibility will be required. This is why the same capes are being built into the KC-46. 4. Every KC-10 Aircraft Commander is a fully qualified/current receiver and formation pilot, and we're good at it. Not only does this give us a lot of operational options (again, on every mission we fly), it makes us better at tanking because we know how much it sucks to be snap-rolled into the sun or weather. Fun party trick: we can boom-check our own formation members to ensure the systems work before the users show. 5. We're cheap to operate: $21K per hour, not including fuel (add another $9K for that). I doubt there's any jet in the inventory that can move as much payload for so little cash. There's a reason FedEx still uses this airframe. And as far as the avionics upgrade cost, it's less than the cost of one KC-46. Pretty good value, I'd say. 6. Yes we can haul a shitload of cargo, almost as much a C-17, just not the oversized stuff like MRAPs. But if you have 160K lbs of gold bricks that need to be in Japan tomorrow, we can get it there quicker and cheaper! Also, there seems to be a perpetual myth that since we carry a lot of cargo, we must be inferior tanker pilots. This myth is dumb. Flying cargo around into non-tactical environments is easy it doesn't detract from other skills. 7. What Boom Control Unit issues are you talking about?

::opens can of worms:: I haven't watched the Ramsey video on the ACA, however anyone who thinks Ramsey is a wizard when it comes to simple math is seriously fooling themselves. His advice on the kind of returns you can expect on retirement savings and his logic behind why you shouldn't use credit cards is enough to convince me his grasp of basic economics math is not the greatest. Totally off-topic and ready for incoming spears from Ramsey-lovers but it had to be said.

  Comment: This sentence reads like it was written by a 3rd grader.

We (-135's) aren't allowed to refuel Harriers with the Iron Maiden, they can only refuel off MPRS jets. Don't really know how Harrier drivers are complaining about an AR we can't do with them. There's a BUFF driver reading this laughing about people bitching about being in contact with 5-10 minutes while they take up to 15-20 minutes to completely refuel using the boom. Boom refueling is much harder (sts) to do and stay in the envelop, especially if you're a heavy, than drogue refueling.

I feel a little guilty taking so much pleasure in this thread... The most arrogant community in AMC, the ones who think by some incredible quirk of mathematics that great pilots exist only in the KC-10 while every other airframe is full of incompetent dweebs, the ones who treat other AMC aircrew deadheading on their jet worse than they treat space-A pax, the ones who can't talk to other AMC crew dogs for more than five minutes without telling them how much they suck or how incredibly gifted KC-10 pilots are. This incredible flying community, a gift to our nation from the almighty, has been told by big blue: GO AWAY, WE DON'T NEED YOU, WE'LL BE JUST FINE WITHOUT YOU. On behalf of KC-135, C-130, and C-17 flyers everywhere: before you start showing up at "slums" like Altus, Little Rock or McConnell and flying our crappy jets, remember to leave your gucci bags and arrogance on your KC-10s when you drop them off at the boneyard.

Can you make a living bumming as a boomer? Thought it was tough for pilots.