Document Page: First | Prev | Next | All | Image | This Release | Search

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
MALCOLM W. BROWNE, N.Y. TIMES
                                                                                                         
    Over Saudi Arabia, Jan. 25--With the war against Iraq currently confined almost entirely to air operations, an armada of flying gas stations near the enemy border is pumping millions of gallons of fuel each day into warplanes on their way to and from their targets.  
    On flight lines from which they fly, U.S. Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft stretch as far as the eyes can see, even when many of these planes are in the air.  Since allied fighter-bombers and attack aircraft are over Iraq day and night, the airborne tankers must be continuously in the air to refuel the combat force.
    During a flight to the border area today, cloud cover obscured Iraqi territory where tanker pilots are often able to see burning targets.  But the volume of air traffic waiting to take on fuel suggested that heavy raids over Iraq were in full swing.  
    The KC-135s refuel combat planes by extending tail booms that are clamped into fuel ports in the wings of aircraft flying only about 30 feet below.  An operator in the tail of the tanker uses a joy stick and other controls to operate fins on the boom, guiding it into the filling port of the "receiver" aircraft.
    As the tanker planes take up station high above the Iraqi border area, they fly in wide circles at
various altitudes, waiting for customers.  From one tanker operating today, a half dozen other tankers were simultaneously visible, each one followed by a flock of fighters waiting their turns for refueling.
     In a mission lasting above three hours, a KC-135 commanded by Capt San Soltys, 30 year old of Grand Rapids, Mich., filled the fuel tanks of four Saudi Arabian F-15 fighters that had been patroling Iraqi skies for enemy aircraft.  The Iraqi air force has remained on the ground declining combat with allied aircraft, but Baghdad's defensive aircraft to fighter opposition.
     Enemy fighters could endanger the tankers themselves, if they could penetrate the powerful aerial sheild provided by allied fighters.  But Capt Soltys and his crew, 1st Lt. Dan Polgher, 28, of Saltsburg, Pa., the planes copilot, Capt. Michael Griems, 28, from Ryegate,Vermont, the navigator and A1C John David Harston, Jr. 20, of Orlando, Fla., the refueling boom operator, are not unduly worried.
    "We're had no trouble from Iraqi aircraft, "Capt. Polghar said, "but we get a little jumpy on the ground when the Scud missiles are coming in."
     Often flying two long missions a day, tanker crews say they have trouble sleeping, partly because of their irregular hours  and partly because of the Iraqi Scud missiles, which have done little damage in Saudi Arabia, but which are a care for widespread anxiety.
     "I'm suffering from an affliction call the why-go-to-sleep-when-a scud-might-hit syndrone, "Lt. Polghar said.

Document Page: First | Prev | Next | All | Image | This Release | Search