927th Air Refueling Wing Conducts " Four Ship Take Off"

  • Published
  • By Capt. Shane Huff
  • 927th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The 927th Air Refueling Wing successfully launched a large formation package out of MacDill Air Force Base Saturday consisting of four KC-135 tanker aircraft .  Also known as an "Elephant Walk", the aircraft taxied together and then departed one after the other with 30 seconds of spacing between takeoffs.

The 927th Maintenance and 927th Operations Groups went above and beyond to conduct this mission.  This was the first large formation package flown from the 927th Air Refueling Wing as a new standup, an unprecented event for an associate wing just barely a year old.  According to one maintenance representative, it does not get any better than this.  In the tanker community a large formation package normally consists of at least three aircraft and flying missions of at least 30 minutes or more in duration.  Flying a four ship mission with on time crew show displays the depth of  experience of our aircrew and maintenance personnel.  

The formation was led by Col Douglas Schwartz, 927th Operations Group Commander.  After leveling off the formation split up to provide refueling support for two different 8 ships packages of F-16's from the 482nd Fighter Squadron of Homestead Air Reserve Base, Fla. Col Schwartz's two ship headed west of Ft Myers, Fla. to air refueling track AR 618 and offloaded 35,000 pounds of fuel (5,247 gallons) to four fighters. The other two ship headed south to air refueling track AR638, just overhead Miami, Fla.  Lt Col Gary Morrison, 63rd Air Refueling Squadron Director of Operations, led this two ship which offloaded 45,000 pounds of fuel (6,746 gallons) to 8 more F-16's. Both formations then broke up into single ships for return to Tampa airspace and eventual full stop landings back at MacDill. After taxiing clear of the runway the 927th Maintenance Group marshaled all four aircraft into parking, the crews deplaned, and the maintenance crew chiefs put the aircraft to bed and called mission accomplished.

From a maintenance perspective this was a huge ordeal.  Approximately 48 man hours were utilized for prepping and launching the four ship mission. Once the jets returned they had to be cleaned, refueled, serviced, and repaired for Monday morning, which took another 96 man hours to complete. "This was the first time we launched more than one aircraft at a time," said Senior Airman Kyle T. Steady, a crew chief with the 927th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. "The 6th Air Mobility Wing has 16 aircraft, and the fact that they allowed us to utilize 25% of their resources during our drill weekend is great for our unit moral, especially in light of our upcoming deployment.  Knowing we could handle the workload was important for us."