The USAF Thunderbirds recently finished their 2024 air show season in Pensacola with the Blue Angels, but they needed a tanker to make it back home to Nellis AFB. Come with us as AvGeekery goes flying for an epic Thunderbirds aerial refueling mission!
The cross-country mission was tasked to the 22nd Air Refueling Wing and 350th Air Refueling Squadron RED FALCONS, based at McConnell AFB in Wichita, Kansas.
McConnell AFB is home to 18 KC-135s, one of which was our plane for the mission. They also house 24 KC-46s (currently the only base to operate both aircraft). With McConnell located in the center of the country, it makes sense.
Thunderstorms nearly scrubbed our mission
The plan was to conduct several aerial refuelings of all 8 Thunderbird jets (two 2-seaters for media rides, plus the 6 demo jets), saving them the trouble of having to hop across the country landing repeatedly for gas.
We don’t need to remind our readers how important tankers are, or their role as the backbone of global air dominance. As the crews say, nobody kicks ass without tanker gas!
Thunderstorms around Wichita almost scrubbed our mission. However, under the expertise of pilot Maj. Greg Rettler and copilot Capt. Cody Devan, we were able to go wheels-up on-time.
We climbed to about 30,000 ft and headed SE, dodging storms along the way, heading for a point where the team would join us for their first aerial refueling.
In the meantime, Senior Airman Martin Hekking got busy in the boom station to prepare for refueling.
Meeting the Thunderbirds at 28,000 ft
We enjoyed the views flying over supercells that were causing trouble below us, before the team joined off our wings thirsty for gas. I headed to the boom with Hekking, along with Adventure Journalist Jim Clash from Forbes, to capture imagery.
Hekking has conducted thousands of “contacts” in his career, refueling more jets and bombers than he can count. The kind of experience you’d expect for such a mission. He was right at home.
I’ve been privileged to embed on many tanker missions over the years, but it never gets old.
We descended to 28,000 ft, cruising at 425 mph, with our eyes glued to the small windows in the boom station, anticipating the first jet’s approach.
Before we know it, Hekking confirmed visual and the first Thunderbird approached as we flew high over the Mississippi River.
One by one each Thunderbird took on a few thousand pounds of gas. Both the tanker crew and team made it look easy, even though we were hitting turbulence along the way.
The Thunderbirds said thank you to the tanker crew with a smoke-on Delta formation
The team then came together behind the boom, and formed up their signature Delta maneuver with 6 jets in very close formation and smoke-on.
It’s one thing to see at an air show, but quite another at nearly 30,000 ft. It’s their way of saying thank you to the tanker crew for their help.
The team then spread out across the sky as we cruised over Texas, hidden under clouds below us. They gave me some great enthusiasm for the photos, waving and making sure I got some cool shots of them saying hello.
After another refueling for each jet, we surfed the cloud-tops together for a bit, and then said farewell and went our separate ways with mission accomplished.
Mission Accomplished
Our return to McConnell was uneventful, as most of the weather had moved on. We landed, shook hands, took some photos together and headed for the squadron building to debrief and call it a day.
The crew were all very cool and gave us a lot of their time, showing us around and sharing stories of their service and some short interviews.
It’s always an honor to embed with our airmen to help tell their story. The folks at McConnell AFB and the 22nd Air Refueling Wing are some of the best there is. My sincere thanks to all involved.
I need to visit the Thunderbirds at Nellis to do a story next!
