Aug 1-2: KC-10 Aerial Refueler; Dover to Ramstein

It was amazing. We scored on the first flight out on a KC-10 refueler. The guys aboard were all reservists and very supportive (they were headed downrange~God Speed!) I told them I had only been on the buisness end of the boom refueler and never actually seen the boom from the boom chair end. Airman Chang and the flight chief said they would give me a personal tour. Ha! Everyone on board wanted a tour when they heard I was getting one so they ended up showing all of us a good time. Both Wally and Francie were amazed at looking out the back end of the KC-10 into what looks like "outer space". You are actually looking down at a large window , suspended above the twinkling ocean floor below. As you can see, you go down into a crawl space and sit in a chair with all the controls for the boom and fuel. Its very trickly business refueling, this was where I saw "white knuckle flying" of the pilots, even more than on a take off or landing. For everyone, it was the highlight of the flight. There were many highlights, as usual, we were able to fly with both patriots and heros on this flight. We also got one of the famous "nastyboxlunches" which this time wasn't the same as what I expected. What I mean is that I found a website that listed out all the box lunches in the entire world that you recieve on a flight, the one for Dover AFB was supposed to be this somewhat high speed meal. As you can see, it wasn't up to par. Boo for you Dover, you can do better. Anyways, the crew made up for it, and as we entered into the decent, one of the crew chiefs came and got Wally to sit up in the jump seat of the cockpit with the pilots. Wally was estactic, this isn't something you get to do on a commercial flight and Wally was humming with excitement when we landed. He took all the pictures of the pilots, his newest heros'. Hats off the Air Force and this crew, they were amazing and very helpful. There is NO better way to fly, first class doesn't EVEN compare. The family had a BLAST flying over. We also were allowed to spread out and get comfortable.