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		   DESERT SHEILD EMBLEM   

LOOK OUT FOR FOREIGN OBJECT DAMAGE

    Individuals working or traveling on the 	 	    5.  Clear the mask by exhaling.
flight line or taxi way should be on the             	    6. Calmly repeat seal check.
look out for foreign objects.                              	    7. Open eyes and breathe normally.
    Objects such as miss placed tools, soft                        8. Replace valve disk cover.
drink cans or any trash or debris can                              9. Monitor for symptoms of contami-
pose a serious threat to our aircraft and        		  nation if seal failure occurred in chemi-
aircrews.                                                     		  cal environment. Seek medical attention
     If it does not belong on the flight                            at first opportunity.
line then pick it up and put it away.                                During your weekly mask inspection put
                                                                                    the mask on and check to for seal fail-
CHECKING FOR PROPER GAS MASK SEAL          ure. The preventive maintenance you
                                                                                    preform will ensure that you are ready
     Some people are experiencing rapid                        for the ALARM RED alerts. For assistance
decompression, a popping sound and                           call the Disaster Preparedness office at
failure to maintain a seal when they                                [(b)(2)]
complete their gas mask seal check. If
this is happening then preform these                            SEND MEDIA THROUGH PROPER CHANNELS
steps: 1. Stop breathing and close eyes.
          2. Use one hand to hold facepiece   		  All news media requesting access to
against face.                                                                 military facilities at this installation
          3. Pull tab on outlet valve cover                          are directed to Public Affairs from the
to expose disk.                                                              Joint Information Bureau in Riyadh or
          4. Dislodge disk from valve seat                         Dhahran.
by rubbing disk in a circular direction                          Anyone being approached by news media
until it flattens over the spoked valve                           for interviews should refer them to PA at
disk seat.                         				     [(b)(2)]

1703RD RECEIVES MEDIA ATTENTION
   
(Editors Note:The following two stories were prepared by a news media pool during their visit to this location.  The stories appear exactly as filed by the reporters to their publications in the states).
FRANK BRUNI
DETROIT FREE PRESS
NEAR THE IRAQI BORDER-- J.D. Harston has been pumping gas for about a year now.  He can't imagine any other job.  This one still brings a smile to his lips and a hammering to his heart. 
  It would do the same to you.  For the service station he mans is a plane, and it operates in motion, at an altitude of more than 20,000 feet.
  Its customers--on a recent afternoon (Friday), four Saudi F-15 fighter jets-- pull up to its rear, coming within feet of its tail. 
  And Airman First Class Harston, lying face-down on red plastic cushions and staring out a window in the underbelly of the plane, uses a control stick to maneuver a long metal wand into his visitor's gas tank, hooking the two aircraft together in flight for the five minutes or so it takes to fill the smaller jet with fuel. 

"It's a pretty neat feeling, "Harston said Friday after he had sucessfully served four customers."You can't believe you've got two aircraft that close together."

The wand is called a "boom" and Harston a "boom operator." 
"I wouldn't trade it for any other job in the Air Force," said 
Harston, 20, of Orlando, Fla. "Refueling is the neatest thing in the world."

It is also important , if by no means new, capability for any war being fought primarily in the air, the current status of Operation  Desert Storm. 
By being able to pull up the floating fuel "tankers" , bomber and fighter jets either on missions or doing combat air patrols can fly multiple missions without having to travel back to their bases-- sometimes several hours away-- to refuel. 

" We allow airplanes to stay up much longer," said Col David E. Cormack, commander of the 1703rd Air Refueling Wing (Provisional). Harston and his three crewmates abord the KC-135 Stratotanker all based out of Plattsburg AFB, N.Y.  as  is  Col. Cornack, are all with the 1703rd, deployed to eastern Saudi Arabia in the beginning of December. 

" It gives them more flexibility, "  Cormack said.  The KC-135 is similar in size and design to a Boeing 707.  The U.S. Air Force first began procuring KC-135s in 1957 and first used them in combat in Southeast Asia in 1964. 

 The Air Force today has a about  640 of the aircraft. Those in Saudi Arabia fly close to the Iraq border and have been operating round-the -clock  since the war began early Jan 17.  They serve U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft and Saudi planes.  The French,  the British  and other allies have their own tankers for their own planes,  Cormack said. 

 While the tankers sometimes fly specifically to meet certain planes in pre-scheduled arrangements, they often simply hover south of the Iraq border, floating service stations for anyone that needs fuel. AWACS planes in the area hook the tankers up with customers. 

 Bombers and fighters jets may refuel multiple times between their departure from and return to base, Cormack said. 

 Both Cormack and the four crewmembers aboard the "Long Distance Runaround" Stratotanker afternoon said the tanker' jobs and experience in the skies are virtually unchanged since the war erupted. 

 They have not encountered any Iraqi planes straying into Saudi airspace.  They feel safe,  surrounded as they are by allied aircraft and AWACS planes that would alert them to any danger. 

 However, they are near enough the border that on a clear days, they can sometines see signs of bomb dropped on Iraq. 

 "A couple of times from the cockpit we've seen little flashes that are probably bombs exploding, "said Harston.  "But it's on the other side of the border, so it's all right with me. " 

 Harston said the aerial joining of the plane with another by the umbilical cord-like boom is not difficult,  impossible as it seems to someone unfamiliar with what planes can and cannot do. 

 The navigator of the stratotanker learns that a plane is coming and, usually, what kind of plane it is.  The pilot and co-pilot adjust the stratotanker's altitude and speed according to the needs of the approaching "receiver" plane, so it can hook up with the larger tanker. 

 Harston then directs the receiver plane into a perfect position to take the boom by flashing different -colored lights telling the receiver pilot to speed up or slow down, gain altitude or lose it. 

 From Harston's peculiar vantage point in a small crawspace  fronted by a panel of controls and three thick windows, the appraoch and annexing of a Saudi F-15 Friday afternoon was a breathing spectacle. 

 One minute, the view was simply of a unbroken bed of fleecy white clouds beneath a powder blue sky. 
The next ,  the F-15 came into view, a few hundred feet below and behind the stratotanker. 

Slowly, it came closer and closer, until Harston could look right down into its cockpit and see the masked face of the Saudi pilot, seemingly no farther than 20 feet away. 
 
 Harston maneuvered the boom toward an opening above the left wing of the F-15.  On the fisrt try, turbulance seemed to shake the fighter jet and it could not stay attached.  It had to drop off, or "break away," and come back for a second try. 

 The joining of the F-15 to the stratotanker by the long boom was like some kind of bizarre sexual encounter. 

 And a casual one, too.  As soon as the F-15 was finished, it quickly disappeared, presumably off to make war with the rest of the boys. 

  Often, the fighter jets fly in pairs, and one that has just finished refueling will fly alongside the stratotanker while it waits fro its partners to tank up. 

  " Look at how close that guy's flying," marveled Capt. Michael Grimes, the navigator of the strtotanker, as he peered out a side window in the plane at the F-15 that had just refueled.  "He's waiting for his buddy." 

   The left wing of the F-15 seemed almost about to touch the right wing of the  tanker. " That's about  as close as you'll ever see two planes get. " said Grimes. 

  The stratotanker served four F-15s Friday afternoon with fuel to spare.  For about 20 minutes toward the end of its mission, it waits for a fifth customer an AWACS controller had said was nearby and need of fuel, but the jet never showed up. 

  "That was kind of rude, "said a cockpit voice over(the intercom) . 

Harston said his and other stratotanker crews often joke about being the aerial aquivalent of a service station, doing a job that would seems less than glamorous if performed on the ground. 

  He said he and other boom operators in particular jest that,  "All we  do is lay on our bellies and pass gas. " 

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