Desert Storm Tanker Lessons Learned
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-second episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast and I'm your host Mark Hasara, a former Air Force KC-135 pilot, flying all over the world passing gas! Recently I had a conversation with a colleague on how far the Air Force tanker community had come since Deseet Stomr and the old Strategic Air Command days of the Single Integrated Operations Plan, the nuclear war plan. I felt the tanker community during Desert Storm was not prepared for high-density, high-ops-tempo air refueling operations because it wasn't our primary focus. This episode lays out what I feel are the...
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DoD Budget and Retiring Aircraft
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-first episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! The Defense Department Budget is out and there are a number of aircraft coming into the inventory and a lot going to the Boneyard at Davis Monthan AFB Arizona. Platforms that I refueled from my KC-135 are going to be gone soon, and I voice my concerns about some of the aircraft being cut out of the inventory. My biggest concern is the health of the tanker fleet of course. There are some new aircraft on the horizon also and some of them are cosmic! This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast is supported...
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Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixtieth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! I've been reluctant to discuss current events but felt this was a good topic since the US Military has accomplished four Non-Combatant Evacuations or NEOs from four US Embassies in the last three years; Afghanistan, Ukraine, Belarus, and as of last week Khartoum Sudan. Instructing at the Joint Forces Staff College I taught US and International students Humanitarian Operations and we did an exercise on NEOs. This episode explains why NEOs are one of the most intense and potentially dangerous missions the US military...
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Pentagon Papers 2.0
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the fifty-ninth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! I'm your host Mark Hasara, retired Air Force KC-135 pilot and airplane nerd! I've been asked numerous times what my thoughts are on the leaked classified documents from the Department of Defense and Pentagon. I'm still scratching my head about how a 21-year-old Airman had access to these documents, particularly CIA Ops Center Reports. The documents were very recent looking at the dates and shed some very interesting light on a number of events happening around the world, particularly the Chinese spy balloon and a scary...
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Ronald Reagan Era SAC Operations 1985 - 1990
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the fifty-eighth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast. We are going to talk about nukes since there is so much about a possible WW III in all the media. President Ronald Reagan created the world's best nuclear deterrent capability in Strategic Air Command as he poured money into the military after years of neglect. The timeframe from when I showed up at the 509th Air Refueling Squadron in 1985 to 1990 when I left Pease as it was closing was a great time to be a KC-135 pilot at Portsmouth New Hampshire. I was flying an airplane I loved, doing a critical Air Force...
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Shock and Awe at 20 Years
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the fifty-seventh episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! This episode is an anniversary episode. This past week marked twenty years since the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom's Shock and Awe air campaign, a term those of us involved never used. To those planning and executing air operations, it was Air Tasking Order Oscar or ATO O. The Combined Air Operations Center Air Refueling Control Team which I led went through six weeks of hell preparing for the opening A-Day and H-Hour, Friday night 21 March 2003 at 9 pm local Baghdad time. In this episode, you will hear...
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Low Altitude Air Refueling Operations
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the fifty-sixth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! I really appreciate all of you tuning in and downloading this and previous episodes of the show. One of the great memories of my KC-135 career was flying at low altitude with a receiver behind us. My first introduction to the planning and execution of low-altitude refueling was at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. All of our 909th Air Refueling Squadron tanker crews were certified to do this technique and procedure. This episode discusses the whys and hows of low-altitude air refueling with examples from training and...
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The World's only Air Refueling Graduate School
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the fifty-fifth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! Thanks for downloading and listening. A three-inch thick manila folder on my desk in my new assignment to the Air Mobility Command Director of Operations or AMC/DO staff ended up being the worst four years of my career and yet the most rewarding looking back on it. This graduate-level curriculum changed the way the US Air Force air refueling community did business... right before 9/11! And nobody wanted us! I was second in command of the Initial Cadre of eighteen airmen tasked with creating the KC-135 Weapons School,...
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Busting the Chinese Spy Balloon
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the fifty-fourth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast. I've waited to post this one because so much aviation history is happening over the US! Over the last weekend in Joint military operations, US Air Force F-22 Raptors and F-16C Vipers shot down the Chinese Spy Balloon and three additional objects, one over Lake Huron with an interesting description. This episode contains the audio from the Spy Balloon shoot-down on 4 Feb and the object "decommissioned" on Sunday 12 Feb. A lot of questions I raise are still unanswered, like where did these last three objects come...
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Strategic Air Command Operations in the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the fifty-third episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast, the second in a series of Strategic Air Command bomber and tanker operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October and November of 1962. Strategic Air Command's Cuban Missile Crisis After Action Report was declassified years ago. I did not find it until researching the chapter of my book called Klaxon! Klaxon! Klaxon! on nuclear operations in the Reagan Cold War. In the days leading up to President John F. Kennedy's landmark speech on the evening of 22 October telling America nuclear missiles are on the island of...
info_outlineWelcome to the fifty-seventh episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! This episode is an anniversary episode.
This past week marked twenty years since the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom's Shock and Awe air campaign, a term those of us involved never used. To those planning and executing air operations, it was Air Tasking Order Oscar or ATO O. The Combined Air Operations Center Air Refueling Control Team which I led went through six weeks of hell preparing for the opening A-Day and H-Hour, Friday night 21 March 2003 at 9 pm local Baghdad time. In this episode, you will hear the background stories of how the air refueling team got to that Friday night air schwacking of Iraq, from Friday 14 March to what you saw a week later on all the news media on 21 March. It looked like everything was going smoothly but no, it wasn't. The tanker force was not in place until Sunday 23 March.
This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast is sponsored by the book Tanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit found in all four formats; hardback, softback, Kindle, and Audible. Thirty-two pictures taken during events described in the book are contained in the pages, some taken by the author and some taken by the receivers.
Prints of aircraft participating in the opening night of Iraqi Freedom can be found at Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. These are four, six, or eight-foot-long aircraft profiles printed on vinyl which can be peeled off or framed and placed on any flat surface.
The F-15E Strike Eagle was tasked to support Close Air Support to the Third Infantry Division in their march to Baghdad. This F-15E carries the weapons load normally used on such CAS missions.
The F-16CJ Wild Weasel took part in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) and the Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses on the opening night when the Baghdad Super Missile Engagement Zone had to be destroyed.
The F-16CJs were supported in their mission by the RC-135 Rivet Joint, an electronic intelligence collection platform used to identify, classify, and locate Saddam's SAM systems.
The E-3B Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System or AWACS was the Air Battlefield Manger platform for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Air Mobility Command KC-10 Extender was critical to the air refueling system for Operation Iraqi Freedom because they could refuel both Boom or Drogue-equipped aircraft and were air refuelable, allowing the KC-10 to be filled up during flight.
Go by my Lt Col Mark Hasara TikTok page to see short 15 to 30-second aviation and military videos that educate and entertain. Some are pretty incredible!
Thanks to all of my listeners for downloading this and previous episodes of the podcast. I really do appreciate it! This and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast can be found on my website at markhasara.com