Ok,
So now that I've had a few its time to pull my hands out of the hanger and tell you a true story.

So there I was,
Lying down in the air refueling pod of a KC-135 aerial tanker with my first student. Our mission was to refuel with a B-52.

The boom trails at 30 degrees from horizontal. Zero degrees in azimuth meaning its straight back down the center line of the aircraft. Now the air refueling limits for a B-52 are very generous. The upper limit is 20 degrees and the lower limit is 40 degrees. The left and right limits are ten degrees from center. The inner limit is six feet from the edge of the boom to a outer extension 18 feet.

My student is flying his first mission since graduating from aerial refueling school and he wants to show me how sharp he is. So now the B-52 "Buff" (Big Ugly Fat Fellow) is parked 30 feet from the boom and is waiting to be cleared in. I notice that his flight controls are moving quite a bit since the weather is a bit bumpy, but the aircraft is rock steady. The student clears him in a the Buff starts to come forward. I look down into the cockpit and see that the pilot is a Major. So I'm thinking, "cool, this guy's an old crew dog and my day will be easy."

So my student extends the boom and inserts the nozzle into the receptacle at 12 feet extention, 30 degrees elevation, zero degrees in azimuth. Perfect! I can feel my tanker is moving around a bit so I know that Buff pilot has his hands full as well. But he's steady as a rock! So after a few minutes he starts to creep up in elevation. Out of the blue my student gives him a "down 2" correction. Buff replies with a crisp "Rodger" and he creeps back down to 30. Then he starts to creep down and again my student pipes up with, "up 2" and again the crusty old crew dog of a bomber pilot says, "Rodger". All the while working hard to keep that big bird flying smooth.

I jotted a note to myself to talk to this kid at mission debrief about verbal corrections and show him the air refueling envelope diagram. By this time the Buff creeps in to 10 feet and my student calls, "Back 2". Now someone is squeezing the mike button and you can hear him breathing like Darth Vader in a marathon and replies "Wilco". It's the Buff pilot! Then he realizes it and releases the button. He moving back slowly with the weather getting worse. I thought, dang this guy is really good!

Then my student says, "forward 2" and the Buff pilots crassly replies, "Boom you step out here and move this son of a gun two fringin feet!" The student gave the look and I couldn't stop laughing!

Ok I need another beer!

Frank.