We managed the day refueling mission, so now it is on to ATQ-02 - Night Refueling. The layout of the mission is very similar to the day refueling mission, except the weather is horrible, with thunderstorms, rain, poor visibility, and (of course) darkness.
As usual, it is a cold & dark start, so the first five minutes is a flurry of activity. As in the first mission, I take the time to update the rendezvous times in the CDU so that I can time my arrival with the tanker correctly.
Soon we are blasting up through the storms and eventually we break out into a layer. I follow directions from the instructor, which gets me pointed toward the air-to-air refueling pattern. I’ll comment again how impressed I am with the amount of work and testing it must have taken to work out all these points meshing in the mission design.
After leveling at 8,000, we start our climb to 14,000’ to the rendezvous point, then we’ll climb another 1,000’ to 15,000’ for the tanking once we have the tanker in sight.
Climbing up to altitude, the time-on-target indicator is showing I’ll be 16 seconds late, but I’ll make that up when I level off and increase speed. The goal is for it to be +/- 0 obviously…
We reach the RVCP on time and the tanker is swinging around in front of us. I call it in sight, close to the pre-contact position and call that I’m ready to refuel. The difference with and without NVGs is pretty impressive…
Of course the tanker starts his turn right about as I’m getting ready to hook up. It goes well though, and I make the requisite number of connects and disconnects over the next few minutes. The daylight mission definitely helped nail down the picture.
Once the instructor clears us to RTB, I fly for a few minutes off the tankers wing, then proceed toward base.
Throughout the whole mission the instructor is full of great tips. We go over pre-tanking, pre-contact, and post refueling checklists.
The return to Kobuleti is pretty exciting since the weather is still at minimums, requiring a somewhat tense instrument approach…but it works out…
I pull into the shut-down area and get my score - another Qualified Minus, but I’m happy with that…!
