What It Was Like to Fly Face-Down in a KC-135 Boom Pod Over Vietnam

Описание: 19 April 1967. Over North Vietnam an F-105 called Panda 3 has fought MiG-17s and is down to a hundred pounds of fuel. Captain Howard Bodenhamer reaches a tanker in the dark and haze, and in his report he writes that the boom operator "fearlessly and expertly connected with my receptacle." The Air Force report that printed his account never names the man on the boom.

This film is about him: the enlisted man lying face-down in the tail of a KC-135A, looking through a window at the airplane he is keeping in the air. From June 1964 to August 1973 KC-135s in Southeast Asia made 813,878 refuelings, and no tanker was lost to enemy action. Every contact was flown by one man in the back.

Fifteen things came with that job, counted down in the order he met them: from SAC alert at home to the pod, the anchors, contact, the fighters and bombers, night and weather, the saves, and the rule-breakers who flew into North Vietnam. At number one, an enlisted man whose boom fed a Navy tanker while that tanker fed a fighter.

Built from the record.

Chapters:
0:00 Panda 3, 19 April 1967
2:34 15. The only enlisted man aboard
4:12 14. Sixty days at a time
5:31 13. A heavy tanker in the heat
6:26 12. Face-down in the pod
8:09 11. The anchors
9:23 10. Contact
10:43 9. The fighters
12:53 8. The bombers
14:36 7. Night and weather
16:25 6. The save
18:29 5. Towed home
19:42 4. Over the fence
21:49 3. Eleven days in December
23:38 2. The boom in a dive
25:42 1. Three airplanes, one boom
30:37 The last contact

Sources:
USAF / The Boeing Company, T.O. 1C-135(K)A-1 Flight Manual, USAF Series KC-135A Aircraft (basic 15 February 1966)
Maj George R. Fessler Jr., Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report: Aerial Refueling in Southeast Asia, 1964-1970 (HQ PACAF, 17 June 1971)
Project CHECO, HQ PACAF Directorate of Tactical Evaluation, Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report: USAF SAC Operations in Support of SEAsia (HQ PACAF, 17 December 1969)
Richard K. Smith, Seventy-Five Years of Inflight Refueling: Highlights, 1923-1998 (Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998)
J. C. Hopkins, chapter XI 'Air Refueling', in The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973: An Illustrated Account (Office of Air Force History, 1984)
Maj John G. Payne, A Comparative Study of KC-135 Operations in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Allied Force (Air Force Institute of Technology, June 2000)
Walter J. Boyne, The Young Tigers and Their Friends (Air Force Magazine, June 1998)
The Boeing Company, Transport Division, Design Considerations for Air Refueling Receiver Installations With the KC-135A (Document D6-7941, 1961)
Brig. Gen. James R. McCarthy and Lt. Col. George B. Allison, Linebacker II: A View from the Rock (Air War College, 1979)
Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966-1973 (Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000)
Capt John X. Olivo, Occupational Survey Report: Inflight Refueling Operator Career Ladder (USAF Occupational Measurement Center, August 1978)
John L. Frisbee, Valor: Tribute to the Tankers (Air Force Magazine, January 1996) and Valor: A Spectacular Save (Air Force Magazine, June 1997)
A1C Tara Fadenrecht, 60 years in the air: The KC-135 during the Vietnam War (22nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs, DVIDS, 28 October 2015)
TSgt Scott T. Sturkol, Veterans of Vietnam highlight war's air refueling efforts (Air Mobility Command Public Affairs, 29 September 2009)
SMSgt M. A. Gentry, The History of Air Refueling (Air Force Enlisted Heritage Research Institute, 1994)
Ellery D. Wallwork, Vietnam the first 'tanker war' (HQ Air Mobility Command History Office, 2009)

Film (public domain, U.S. government works): U.S. Air Force films 'The Strength of SAC' (1966), 'The Indispensables: KC-135 Air Refueling' (c.1968, SFP 1797) and the SAC Semiannual Film Report (1968), with the other U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and National Archives film credited on screen.

Thumbnails: National Archives photographs of a KC-135A refueling F-105Ds over Southeast Asia, 1967. Pictures: U.S. Air Force, DoD and Navy film and photographs (National Archives, DIMOC, DVIDS) and pages of the Air Force's own records. Scenes marked RECONSTRUCTION are 3D models of the boom and the boom operator's panel, built from the KC-135A flight manual. No AI pictures.

Photos via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0: Photo: James St. John /.

Narration: AI voice.

Real voices: the boom operator 'King' (The Strength of SAC, U.S. Air Force film, 1966); Sgt. Novak, fighter pilots, a tanker squadron commander and Gen. William W. Momyer (The Indispensables: KC-135 Air Refueling, U.S. Air Force film, c.1968, National Archives); the narrator of the SAC Semiannual Film Report (1968) and Gen. John P. McConnell, Air Force Chief of Staff, presenting the 1967 Mackay Trophy.

Independent and educational. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense or any armed force.