Belgian Air Force F-16s refueling from U.S. tanker over Afghanistan. With boom operator's audio (and some wasted fuel…)

March 11, 2012 Military Aviation

David Cenciotti

After publishing the previous article about the aerial tanker’s “flying boom” here’s another video taken during the same sortie, showing a U.S. KC-10 refueling a flight of two Belgian Air Force F-16s over Afghanistan. This time, the footage contains some audio that let you listen the boom operator talking with the two Viper pilots.

After completing the refueling operations, the two F-16s perform some tactical breaks from the country to give the opportunity to someone inside the boom operator’s station to film the stunts.

If you thought an aerial tanker’s “flying boom” was rigid, you better watch this video (theaviationist.com)
Sixty F-16s taxiing at Kunsan air base in one of the greatest show of force ever: that’s a record-breaking Elephant Walk! (theaviationist.com)
KC-130J: a tactical gas station in the sky. Serving fighters, bombers, choppers. And maybe even F-35s sometime in the future. (theaviationist.com)

About David Cenciotti

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

joepking says:

March 12, 2012 at 12:59 AM

David, if you look at the Belgian F16s they only have weapons on one side of the plane, the hard points of one side are not armed, including the wing tip sidewinder, only one sidewinder, why is this? Save weight? Fuel? I can see if they had released ordinance from the hard point as under there they have a bomb but why would they be minus a sidewinder?
Bjorn says:

April 26, 2012 at 7:01 PM

They are. The right side has a GBU-38 and the right side has a GBU-32 and Sidewinder on the tip rail. The one Sidewinder is just for protection, but since there are no adversaries in Afghanistan to cope with, only one is carried at a time.