As part of Air Force Week in New York, the Air Force invited media aboard a KC-10 Extender to watch it refuel three F-15s engaged in military exercises yesterday afternoon. The KC-10 was deployed from the 514th Air Mobility Wing located at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, and was refueling F-15s from Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield, MA.
Though its primary purpose is refueling other aircrafts, the KC-10 has the additional capability of transporting 170,000 pounds of cargo and 75 passengers. A typical crew consists of four people—pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and boom operator—and the KC-10 has a maximum fuel load of 356,000 pounds.
In yesterday's exercise 40 miles off the coast of Long Island and 24,000 feet in the air, OPEC 70 (the call sign of the KC-10) refueled Rage 1, Killer 1 and 2. At the fly-by wire boom controls was Master Sergeant Kingsley Rose, a Queens resident with the Air Force Reserve for 15 years. Her day job happens to be at JFK for Allied Aviation.
Air Force Week, which started in 2006, runs from August 19-21st, with its home base at the Intrepid. In addition to flyovers of area sports events, the "Thunderbirds" will be flying over the Intrepid on Sunday followed by an open water rescue demonstration.
