If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near.

— Sun Tzu

Thousands of feet above Afghanistan, a crew sits and waits for their opportunity. Not to drop bombs or shoot bad guys, but to offload thousands of gallons of fuel. Yes, all over the world, at any given time, we have planes “air-refueling”, as it’s called. My name is Ryan and I am a “Boom Operator” and these are my stories.

 I will recount some past and possibly current adventures of my time as a “Boom”. I have done this job for over a decade and have loved every minute of it. Generally, people have no idea what I am or what I am talking about when I explain my job. Most think I hold the microphone on a stick in the newsroom (also called boom operators) or if I say I refuel planes, they think of me as a gas station attendant. I am neither and my job is incredibly rare. The Boom Operator population, in the Air Force, is less than 1%. It is dangerous and took months of training before anyone trusted me to do it solo.

Many people may be familiar with the military or the Air Force in general. I will warn you that these stories may come off slightly off-putting as Tanker Crews are “different” from everyone else in the flying community. We all pride ourselves on our ability to accomplish the mission but tend to do it with our own “tanker personality”.

With this blog I will be attempting to cover all the required assignments for my Com210 class. This will include a new logo for the Boom Operators and a compilation video of the inner workings of my job. I am also supposed to create an inspiration file which will be difficult, as this is not a job you find often in the public sector.

With that, below you will find a Facebook link to boom operators around the world. Here you can find posts, videos, and pictures from many different sources. Secondly, after doing some research, I find I will be one of the few (if not the only one) that has ever blogged about being a Boom Operator. I have also posted the website of the ONLY public sector air refueling platform in the world. It’s rare to find Booms that move on to fly in the civilian world.

I have had the chance to visit countries all over the world. Some great and some not so much. Along the way I have taken pictures and even some videos. Audio is quite tough to capture in our airplane as it is quite loud (it’s not like airliners, comfort is not what the plane was built for). I will complete some interviews with Boom Operators and Pilots to get a full crew perspective. These pictures and videos will follow many of the locations I have been to and give an insight in the life of some of our great unsung heroes, Tanker Toads.

https://www.facebook.com/flyingtigersmmm

http://www.omegaairrefueling.com/vms/