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Quenching the battle with JP-8

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Clark Staehle
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Providing around the clock responsive, flexible, and dependable air refueling is their mission -- delivering JP-8 to combat aircraft in colossal amounts is what they do. 

The 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron here offloads more than 40 million pounds of fuel in a single month. This equates to about six times as much gas the average service station sells in the same amount of time. 

"All the fuel in the aircraft can be either used by us while orbiting in the theater or offloaded to other aircraft," said Capt. Tony Ewers, 340th EARS KC-135 pilot from MacDill AFB, Fla. 

"We usually carry about 200,000 pounds of fuel, which is approximately 30,000 gallons per mission."
The KC-135 Stratotankers and aircrews and maintainers who comprise the 340th EARS here are breaking records as fast as they can set them, more importantly enabling combat aircraft to maintain their presence in the area of operations. 

In March, the squadron set a new record for sorties flown, fuel offloaded and hours logged. Every month thereafter they've continued to reach new milestones - to include offloading its billionth pound of fuel last December. 

The squadron logged more than 700 missions in May - including about 4,500 flight hours, 3,000 receivers and 40 million pounds of fuel. During that time, the squadron flew about half of the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing's total sorties, providing about half of all the fuel to the AOR. 

"We're here to support the refueling needs in theater," the captain said. "We have about 40 crews and 30 planes, so whatever they need us to do, we'll do and wherever they need us to be, we'll be." 

Typically, the aircraft's crew of three will refuel four or five fighters over the AOR in an average mission. 

On a recent mission, a crew comprised of Captain Ewers, pilot, 1st Lt. Kurt Roen, copilot, and Staff Sgt. Matthew Janson, boom operator, refueled five jets over the AOR -- four F-16 Fighting Falcons and a Navy EA-6B Prowler, aircraft used for close air support and electronic countermeasures respectively. 

The four F-16s were from Balad Air Base, and were actively supporting ground troops in combat through shows of force and close air support. The KC-135s extended their productivity by giving them fuel via the boom of the aircraft. 

The tankers typically maintain an orbit high above the fighters supporting ground forces, so the fuel is there for them whenever they need it. As a result the planes can quickly return to the fight versus landing and refueling on the ground. 

Many of the tankers here are configured to refuel planes using both a refueling boom and a drogue. The EA-6B was refueled using the plane's multipoint refueling system, which is mounted near both wing tips. The MPRS pods enable the crew to refuel any two fixed-wing aircraft in the military's inventory, including most fixed-wing coalition aircraft at the same time. Aircraft equipped with MPRS pods have served as force multipliers allowing more aircraft to be refueled during any one mission. 

"The MPRS pods enable us the capacity of refueling any jet up there - Air Force, Navy, Marines, British Tornados," Captain Ewers said. "It's very versatile." 

The 340th EARS not only refuels U.S. aircraft, but also coalition jets. This keeps them busy and moving at record pace. 

But the pilots wouldn't be able to put up record-breaking numbers if their aircraft weren't properly maintained by the Airmen of the 340th Aircraft Maintenance Unit, 379th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. 

One thing that sets the 340th AMU apart from other AMUs here is it is comprised of Airmen from all of the five active duty stateside tanker bases. 

"Every base operates a little differently, but due to the training we receive we blend well together," said Capt. Patrick Cain, 340th AMU officer in charge, from Grand Forks AFB, N.D. 

The 340th EARS aren't the only ones setting exceeding expectations, the 340th AMU bolsters a 97.8 mission effective rate where only 2.2 percent of all the KC-135s launched didn't go up because of maintenance issues. 

The 340th EARS has reached new heights in supporting the war fighter by providing millions of pounds of fuel sustaining air operations in the AOR. Many units come together to help make the mission in the Global War on Terrorism successful. The refuelers and maintainers of the 340th have done just that and continue to do so as part of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom.