SOUTHWEST ASIA -- The U.S. Central Command area of responsibility is a large area, spanning nearly 6,000 miles from the Horn of Africa to Northern Afghanistan. Coalition aircraft have to cover this entire area from a limited number of bases and can be required to get to a location fast and remain in the area long enough to accomplish their missions.
However, without the KC-135 Stratotankers assigned to the 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron providing air-to-air refueling, most of them -- both joint and coalition -- would not be able to meet their requirements.
"One of our planes takes off for an air refueling mission about once an hour every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," said Lt. Col. Eric Wohlrab, Jr., 340th EARS commander, who is deployed from McConnell Air Force Base, Wash. "The KC-135 brings fuel into the AOR for receivers who need it. You can name just about anything out there and we can refuel it."
The 340th EARS is one of three refueling squadrons in the AOR, but it is the largest. He said more than half of the fuel provided by air-to air refueling is pumped by the 340th EARS.
The Stratotanker can hold up to 200,000 pounds of fuel, and much of that is passed to other aircraft during a mission.
"The KC-135 holds about a swimming pool's worth of gas and we would give about half the pool away in a normal sortie," said Colonel Wohlrab.
He said the rest of the fuel is used by the tanker or held in reserve for emergencies.
The squadron is made up of approximately 200 individuals from 15 different home-station units. The majority of personnel are pilots and boom operators, who are responsible for pumping fuel from the KC-135 into the receiving aircraft.
"We are in charge of the preparation of the back end of the aircraft, pretty much everything from the cockpit aft," said Chief Master Sgt. Kelly Philbrick, assistant chief boom operator, from the New Hampshire Air National Guard's 157th Air Refueling Wing. During a typical mission, there are multiple refuelings of different types of aircraft ranging from a British GR-4 Tornado to a B1-B Lancer."
The boom operators typically have two ways to refuel aircraft; extending the refueling boom and making contact with the receiving aircraft or using the multi-point refueling system.
The MPRS works by trailing a hose ending with an inflatable basket from the aircraft's wing tips.
Most Navy and North Atlantic Treaty Organization aircraft employ this system, using an extended probe to make contact with the basket to begin refueling. While it's possible for the squadron to modify a boom to refuel this type of aircraft, most boom operators prefer the MPRS.
"We can hang off the end of the boom, but it's about 12 feet long and it's very rigid and can be very unforgiving on a receiver," Chief Philbrick said. "It can really beat them up. The ones off the wing tip have a lot of give and take."
Tanker crews will normally work for 12 to 13 hours per day followed by a 12-hour crew rest. The colonel said crews will work for eight or nine days in a row before they take a day off.
"It is busy, our crews pretty much fly every day," said Colonel Wohlrab, a native of San Francisco. "I max them out in flying hours every month. Therefore, my crews will rotate out every 60 days or so because, by regulation, they cannot fly any more than they already are. We fly every minute out of them we can in a month and maximize their usefulness.
"Our great nation has enjoyed literal air dominance for quite some time," Colonel Wohlrab said. "A key strategic piece in air dominance is the ability to air refuel, one simply cannot sustain air dominance without it. Think of the tanker as the mission support group in the air; we help everyone get their job done."
Colonel Wohlrab credits much of the squadron's success to not only his people, but to the maintenance workers who keep the Stratotankers here in working condition.
"We fly old aircraft which are about 50 years old," he said. "Maintenance does a great job of taking care of our aircraft so they are ready to go every time."
"All of the missions are combat missions for us," said Lt. Col. Dan Desautels, 340th EARS director of operations, who is deployed from the New Hampshire Air National Guard 157th ARW. "We consider our weapon to be time. It's literally an offensive weapon because if our receivers can loiter over an area, keeping the enemy's heads down and allowing our forces to keep their heads up, you have the upper hand. And we allow them the luxury of greater time to do that."
"We have a simple mission, but it's an important mission," Colonel Wohlrab said. "A lot of folks depend on our air refueling to keep them airborne and to keep them on station."