Sled Driver

Refueling was the most physically intense part of the entire flight for me. This was
in direct contrast to my RSO's workload during refueling. I can remember hanging on
the boom with a death grip on the stick, sweat in my eyes, turbulent weather, and
one engine in burner. I asked my backseater how many minutes we had left on the
track, hoping it would soon be over. Walt said he'd check in a moment as he was
enjoying some butterscotch pudding tube food. I wanted to kill, but reserved myself
for the four and a half excruciating minutes I had left on the boom. There really
wasn't much Walt could do to help me on the boom except give me a countdown of
fuel and time to completion. It was my baby, but Walt did help with encouraging
words at times and mostly sat anxiously amidst the grunts and groans coming from
the front seat.
Darkness, clouds, turbulence, a tanker without a functioning autopilot or a new
boomer all contributed to making life difficult for Sled pilots in need of gas. Refueling
was one of the phases of flight where everyone who flew the airplane had one or
more humbling stories to tell. Some days the airplane just drove right in and hooked
up as easy as getting a drink at a drive-in. That so many refuelings were
accomplished safely in the airplane was a tribute to the skills and experience level of
the SR pilots who flew them. Even in the best of conditions, aerial refueling was
always an intricate ballet of men and machines with little margin for error. Some
days everything went right on the boom and I was an ace. Other days I thought
someone had dumped a box of snakes in the cockpit and nothing went right. This
vital procedure occurred two to four times each mission and made for many a sore
arm at the end of the day.
THE ACCEL
After we got our fuel load, I eased the jet back, swung clear of the tanker and lit the
burners. I felt myself pushed back into the seat as the afterburners lit off and the
airplane accelerated forward. This was a comfortable feeling because we were
heavy with fuel at dangerously slow airspeeds for the Sled. The tanker crews always
enjoyed watching the SR accelerate past them. The SR was a drooling tiger off the
leash, streaming fuel from full tanks, in full burner, blazing toward the unknown.
In full afterburners, we went into what we termed the dipsy maneuver. The
dipsy maneuver was a gentle climb to just under 35,000 feet, followed by a gentle
push on the stick, nosing the aircraft downhill to help it accelerate through Mach
1. We didn't want to bottom out below 30,000 feet because regulations didn't
allow supersonic flight below this altitude in the continental United States.
The pilot accomplished all this while the RSO obtained a clearance