A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

Humor is important. It makes us happy and rejuvenates the mind. We worked hard during the war’s 70-plus days, and our minds and bodies were tired. I saw and heard several things that now might seem insignificant, but at the time they were quite funny. One such event, which struck me as very symbolic, said, “This is a team effort; we will make this war work.”

A normal sortie profile includes taking off, flying to a tanker and refueling, working in Kosovo for about 45 minutes, taking a 45-minute round-trip flight to a tanker for more fuel, and then working another 45 minutes in Kosovo before going home. Although we often used the same tanker track for both refuelings, we might refuel from two different tankers. It was also normal for us to launch on every mission with all the tanker call signs and air-refueling track frequencies, so that we would have the information if it became necessary to switch to a different tanker while in flight. The tankers launched each day with the call sign and the amount of fuel they planned to off-load to each of their scheduled receivers. This enabled them to manage their fuel and deal with unexpected events. The plan was rather simple, flexible, and usually worked well. Occasionally, however, the refueling tracks became little more than controlled chaos.

On a rather stormy day about halfway through the conflict, my wingman and I were flying an AFAC mission in Kosovo using the call sign Ford 11. As I hooked up to our tanker at the beginning of the mission, I was told by its crew that, even though they were supposed to refuel us again during our second visit to the track, they would not have the fuel to do so. Most pilots like to take on a few extra pounds of fuel when the weather is bad; it seemed that today, because of those extra pounds, our tanker would come up short. The tanker pilot said that he was coordinating with the CAOC for a replacement tanker. I was not concerned since this was not the first time this sort of thing had happened. We took our gas and headed north to Kosovo.

We had some luck: the weather over Kosovo was better than that over Macedonia, where the tanker tracks were located. Eventually we had to depart Kosovo to meet our second tanker. We noticed more radio chatter than usual as we checked in with the area controller. This was to be expected with bad weather, but today the controller was also hard to hear. After trying for several minutes, I was able to get one good exchange with the controller. He said that my new tanker’s call sign was Esso 73 and that I would refuel on my original track. That was the last successful contact I had with the controller. That meant we could not have him give us vectors to the tanker, which created a problem since the A-10 does not have an air-to-air radar and the visibility prevented my acquiring the tanker visually. My only other method for finding the tanker was to use my radio’s direction-finding capability. That required my being in radio contact with the tanker. While en route to the track I tried all the frequencies but could not contact the tanker. We were now about to enter the track, and our remaining fuel dictated that we either start taking on fuel in the next few minutes or turn for home.

I entered the tanker track and found some clear air in the western end. The tanker pilots had a fair amount of discretion with regard to where they flew in the large tracks—the good ones tried to stay out of the clouds. Lucky for us, most tanker crews were good. As we were about to turn for home, I saw a tanker fly out of a wall of clouds on a heading that I could intercept. We turned to intercept it and started calling again on all frequencies for the track. Normally we didn’t talk to the tankers prior to refueling, but we were always on the same frequency and knew each other’s call sign. While we were still a mile or two from the tanker, it started a turn towards us, which helped my rejoin geometry and kept us from reentering the clouds before we could join on its wing. We were still about a half mile from the tanker and closing when I saw its flaps come down and the refueling boom lower. This was a good sign. I slid behind the tanker and stabilized next to the boom. From there I could see the boom operator settle into position.