Air refueling squadron takes flight to fuel the fight

Published May 1, 2006
By Senior Airman Mark R.W. Orders-Woempner
379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- Fighters are in the air 24 hours a day, providing constant support to ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without in-flight refueling, that coverage would be lost.

The 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron provides fuel to those aircraft as they keep troops on the ground safe, said Lt. Col. Brou Gautier, 340th EARS commander.

“Our mission is simply to refuel the various aircraft supporting coalition ground forces,” he said. “The fuel we provide to the close-air support team increases loiter times, which in turn allows a smaller force to be more effective over a longer period of time.”

Refueling the fighters is crucial to the war on terrorism because of what they bring to the fight, the colonel said.

“The air refueling concept is a powerful enabler behind the speed, precision lethality and flexibility characteristics inherent to airpower,” said Colonel Gautier. “The A-10s, F-16s, F-15s and other fighters provide the teeth. The fact that we can keep them in the air for longer periods of time facilitates concentration of mass with an unprecedented economy of force.”

“The way the war is being fought now would stop if we weren’t around,” said Capt. Joe Maxon, a 340th EARS pilot deployed from Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. “We’re able to allow the fighters to hang out in an area to provide the ground guys with the support they need.”

People and aircraft from nine active-duty, Air Force Reserve Command and Air National Guard units form the 340th EARS. They were recently called to perform to support Operation Mountain Lion over the skies of Afghanistan.

Air refueling reached a peak in the 10-day operation on April 15 when the unit offloaded almost 50 percent of the fuel transferred midair in the entire U.S. Central Command area of operation, said James Malachowski, 379th Air Expeditionary Wing historian. It was the largest one-day offload of fuel in the AOR since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, Mr. Malachowski said.

According to Colonel Gautier, the unit’s success in Operation Mountain Lion would not have been possible if not for every member of the refueling team doing his or her job.

“We offloaded more than 10 million pounds of fuel and consumed another 10 million pounds of fuel ourselves in just 10 days,” he said. “That comes down to troops uploading over 20 million pounds of fuel, maintainers launching over 160 sorties and aircrews flying over 1,000 hours in a week and half.”

Colonel Gautier praised all base agencies for his unit’s success.

“We can’t do it by ourselves; it’s a team effort,” he said. “That’s from the crew chiefs to the (civil engineering) guys who make our living quarters comfortable enough for effective crew rest. They underwrite everything we make happen.

“Breaking out of the daily, hot desert grind to see the effects of your hard work can be tough, but 379th AEW leadership pushes that message so consistently and well that one of the most rewarding aspects of my job has been observing the bowed-up sense of pride people feel when they realize how essential their labors are to the mission.”

Success for the 340th EARS and other refueling units comes at a price, the colonel said. The typical rotation for a crew involves a 70-30 ratio: For every 70 days the crews are deployed, they get to spend about 30 days at home.

“That takes a tremendous toll on our crew force,” said the colonel, who credits Reserve and Guard forces with helping to take some of the pressure off of active-duty tanker crews.

“The volunteer Guard and Reserve partners, who seamlessly plug into active-duty lines, allow for better training opportunities for active-duty aircrews at home and relief from a heavy deployment schedule,” said Colonel Gautier.

The KC-135 crews and their maintainers don’t just deploy to combat zones, said 1st Lt. Jesse Stubbs, a 340th EARS pilot from Grand Forks AFB.

“If we’re not supporting the fighters directly, then we’re helping move the airlift and bomber assets overseas,” said Lieutenant Stubbs. “We do this by forming an air bridge across the ocean that fuels those aircraft as they cross over.”

Aerial refueling is not the only mission of the tanker crews, said Staff Sgt. Anthony Krisher, a 340th EARS boom operator deployed from Grissom Air Reserve Base, Ind.

“We often haul cargo and passengers while performing the main mission of refueling,” said Sergeant Krisher, a reservist from Grissom’s 434th Air Refueling Wing. “Boom operators often act like loadmasters, which isn’t what I expected when I was a crew chief.”

Despite the stresses inherent with the mission, Colonel Gautier said this is an exciting time to be in the tanker world.

“Taking part in these missions is incredibly exciting because when people review the history, they’ll be looking at the success of an operation from the lessons-learned perspective,” he said. “The possibility that any of our daily operations here could be a decisive point in the global war on terrorism drives a tremendous amount of energy into what we do.” (AFRC News Service)