The Baird Family Adventrues in Europe!

On Friday March 13th, I was invited by my employee to come to Andrews Air Force Base for an employer appreciation flight for the Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve (ESGR). He is a Air Force Reservist with the 459th Aerial Refueling Wing. His job is on the communications side, but since he is part of the unit, he was asked if he wanted to invite his boss...of course I said YES! We were invited to go fly a refueling mission on an KC-135 out off the coast of Norfolk to refuel F-16's that are apart of the 113th Wing DC Air National Guard that patrols the skies over DC. Essentially we fly a racetrack pattern out over the coast, and as the planes need to refuel, they fly to their designated racetrack. We had a second KC-135 doing the same ESGR flight about a mile trailing behind us. We each refueled 3 F-16's. As it was also training, each F-16 refueled twice, with multiple captures and disconnects each time. There were about 22 people on each flight, 2 pilots, a boom operator, and another who was mainly there for coordination. To see the refueling, we laid down on our stomachs and looked out a small window looking out behind the tail. The boom operator laid down in the middle, and had controls to move the flaps on the boom (with the 459 AFW written on it), and moved it in and out of position. Regardless to say, it was very cool. The only thing that was actually a disappointment(bear in mind a VERY SMALL ONE!) was the original mission for the day was to go refuel F-22's...I've seen F-16's up close and personal before, but very few people have seen F-22 Raptors. It was snowing that day, and they had been grounded just out precaution. I have included some of the best pictures, but the entire set (112 pictures) has been loaded to snapfish, and here is the link:http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=277670136/a=46738142_46738142/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

I also got to spend some time talking to the pilots, and actually spotted the F-16's off in the distance and then race past us before they joined up.