What about having a canister round for the f35 pack as many 2mm tungsten balls as you can in a 20mm and a small bursting charge set to go off at say 300m
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I honestly think 20mm is too small bore for something like that. But who knows…
I mean they did try a Mini Gau-8 Vulcan pod for the A-16, right?
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Dálnice (1980)
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Looking at the horizon, the image has been rotated by about 30 degrees, but no way!
Someone is very good with Photoshop?
I don’t think so, the reflection on the boom hull is too consistent to be manufactured.
Edit: as I am way too curious and impatient I have found the original, the reason and the explanation for the maneuver.
It’s a real thing. I’m impressed.
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So what’s the story?
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If you rotate the image about 30 degrees counter-clockwise so the horizon is level. It puts the B-52 at what looks like very close to its bank angle limit of 45 degrees.
Apparently, they did actually practice this 
Here is another image from the web, but as you can see the horizon isn’t level because the tanker and BUFF are in what looks like once again about a 45 degree bank…
But rotate that same shot 90 degrees to the right and it looks a lot more dramatic.
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That looks like more than 45º to me!
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Agreed.
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Now that you mention it. When use the coast as a horizon reference and the horizontal plane (no pun intended) of the B-52 it does look greater than 45 degrees:
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@komemiute wins. I fell down a drunk rabbit hole on this last night and thought it was highly interesting
Its also called “attitude refueling” i believe, which makes no sense, but is cool enough for me to use it
B-52 Aircrews Used To Air Refuel In Crazy Bank Angles Just To Prove They Could B-52 Aircrews Used To Air Refuel In Crazy Bank Angles Just To Prove They Could
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Well that answers my next question. The only operational reason I could think of was ‘emergency evasive maneuver’, but if so why wouldn’t you disconnect first.
It is Impressive, but crazy impressive, flying!
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It’s neat but only slightly more difficult than refueling level. The receiver is focused on the tanker, not on the horizon. So long as the tanker uses a very slow roll-rate to both achieve and level from the attitude, the receiver should have no trouble matching. Big jets are way more maneuverable than most people think.
As for why, my guess is that they envisioned “owning” only a small piece of airspace and trained for instances where they needed to operate within it.
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I text a bloke i know who flies voyager about this and he called bullshit on any operational reason other than “training or for a giggle”
Be quicker to dump the b52 nose down and force disconnect
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No wonder they need EARL!
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I can’t believe I am saying this but that is pretty cool. The front of the Blackhawk rotor disk swings pretty low. It’s generally not healthy for one’s head to approach from the front. But I suppose that the friendly robot doing the flying will be kind enough to hold some aft cyclic while soldiers board through the clamshells.
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