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On the one hand, I lol'd; on the other hand, if that's true, what did this guy I met on BODN mean when he told me to EABOD?? I was with up to this one....

I've got probably several hundred plugs on a 135/iron maiden combo, as well as every other combo including Brit VC-10's, L1011's, etc. While the iron maiden is challenging at times, so is landing on the boat at night. One of the worst nights I had was rendezvousing with a 10 over northern Iraq, in the weather, then getting in the basket. A sine wave up and down the hose will rip your probe off just as fast as the maiden. MPR pods have their own challenges as well with wingtip vortices, but it's not hard. They're all terribly unforgiving of inattention and poor technique. That said, it works. Quite well. Harriers not tanking from the maiden is an operational and design limitation, not a matter of refusal. A five wet rhino can be next to impossible if you're single engine with the gear stuck down too. By far the "easiest" thing to tank off of was the S-3, but that's no longer an option. We need what we can afford, from there the guy in the seat needs to adapt, overcome and execute.

Sign me up!

And this whole time I thought Maddow was a dude!

This is my $.02 as a current -135 AC, and a Coronet Detail Planner with one of the Guard TTF shops. I have about 6-7 years in the 135 and about 3 years now of traveling around the world as a Coronet Planner on KC-10s. I'm not going to engage in any of the community/culture bashing or wenis measuring contests. Most tanker dudes are good pilots/booms and want to do their job well. Some suck, and want to keep sucking. No community is immune. From a planning perspective, JarheadBoom hit the nail on the head. A safe rule of thumb in the coronet world is that 1 x KC-10 = 2 x KC-135s. As a planner, we obviously love to reduce the number of moving parts whenever possible. But could we do some of our most complex coronet mission sets (ie, Strikes from KMUO-AOR or 22's from PAED-AOR) with only 135s? Of course. We have done it, all the time. We have also done them with only KC-10s. In the end, the missions are completed with similar rates of MX issues, etc. What matters to the people who’s opinion matter is that the fighters get delivered nearly on time, not a 10-20% cost differential. I have also seen it go both ways with receiver units. Some Navy/Marine units have squawked about 135s. Some got KC-10's. Some were told that the 135 was their only option. It mostly had to do with tail availability. I have yet to see a unit wait for a KC-10 to free up rather than deal with a 135 and go on time, especially when headed westbound. In the case of FMS sales, the rcvr units (most recently Tornados for me) get what they want for obvious reasons. As others have said quite accurately, if big blue does cut the 10 it will be completely about $$. A smaller inventory (less than 20% of the 135 fleet size) with overlapping capabilities would seem to be an easy target. All semantics about who has more items of flair aside, we have other jets that can offload gas and move cargo in the inventory, and rcvr units will adapt. We as planners will adapt, but it will suck. All that being said, I think this and discussions about chopping the A-10 are mostly posturing to wake politicians up to the impacts of sequestration. But anyone who convinces themselves that their job, airplane, base, etc, are indispensable in today's military is just setting themselves up for failure. ~NH

An appropriate response would have been...shouldn't have talked back! If they had 2 black eyes...guess you're a slow learner. Would love to see if they tried to hand out paperwork for not helping someone with a fake black eye?

If they keep this shit up, eventually we'll just ignore things like black eyes, risqué photos and unusually places backpacks, assuming it's another stupid training point.

No one says you guys don't bring a lot to the fight. Problem is, it isn't just about cost per flying hour. Here are the arguments for canning the 10: Big Blue has said that they only reap big savings by retiring a whole fleet. It's more about all the infrastructure - the depots, training assets, MX, base infrastructure, etc., and what that costs to run. The 10 is a good candidate for the axe because we already have a fleet of airplanes that can do the mission. Will it be more challenging? Of course, but it will still get done. Additionally, the KC-135 fleet already has the mods to fly on for another 20 years. It sucks, but the DOD isn't going to drop the cash to upgrade the 10.

Alrighty, I think I fixed the reputation bug. Lemme know if it does not work for you.