We May See America's Next Stealth Bomber by This Time Next Year.

a reply to: boomer135

Yeah, the C-17s were being overused and they needed something to take some of the load off. Obviously, the C-130 doesn't have the reach, the KC-10 was an in system select so they couldn't be relied upon for scheduled AE missions, so that left the KC-135. The stopped flying them in a year or two ago because of safety issues. But it was a once or twice a week scheduled mission dedicated to AE. We'd always fill up the plane with patients. Fly out of Ramstein, land at Bagram at night, 3 hours ground time, load up the patients and go. It was mostly guard and reserve birds that would get the call for it. They'd fly into Ramstein specifically for that mission....2 or 3 weeks at a time if I recall correctly.

Never worked with the 427th. Loved the mission at Pope, hated the area. Fayettevill, NC is just....awful.

originally posted by: Assassin82
a reply to: boomer135

Yeah, the C-17s were being overused and they needed something to take some of the load off. Obviously, the C-130 doesn't have the reach, the KC-10 was an in system select so they couldn't be relied upon for scheduled AE missions, so that left the KC-135. The stopped flying them in a year or two ago because of safety issues. But it was a once or twice a week scheduled mission dedicated to AE. We'd always fill up the plane with patients. Fly out of Ramstein, land at Bagram at night, 3 hours ground time, load up the patients and go. It was mostly guard and reserve birds that would get the call for it. They'd fly into Ramstein specifically for that mission....2 or 3 weeks at a time if I recall correctly.

Never worked with the 427th. Loved the mission at Pope, hated the area. Fayettevill, NC is just....awful.

Thats cool as hell. I've never heard of a tanker landing at Bagram. Learn something new everyday. I remember when i was in tech school we put the jet into an AE configuration but to be honest its the last time i even seen that set up. I can't imagine the 135 being a good jet for that mission, especially with the noise in flight.

And yeah the 427th is probably one of the most classified squadrons in the air force. lol they do some crazy stuff.

a reply to: darksidius

I think it is interesting at least that the video mentioned the speed as a rather specific 2.4M and the animated jet they used seams very similar to the silhouette of the craft photographed in Amarillo. It also showed depicted that craft with 4 engines (8:30).
I guess we'll know next year if they gave away something about the real jet or not.

a reply to: boomer135

After the -141 retired we used to get -135 medevac fights all the time through Hickam. They tried to use the C-9 a few times, but range issues kept it from being a good fit for out there. But at least a couple times a month we'd get one in with 20 or 30 patients bound for Tripler. Sometimes less if they were more urgent.

a reply to: Sammamishman
Yes the video concept look a little like the Amarillo strange jet, with the air difraction it can.