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Description
| Notes: C-135A equipped with flying boom for aerial refueling. May be used as a cargo/troop transport (4 CREW, 80 PASSENGERS) . | ||
| Manufacturer: | Boeing | |
| Base model: | C-135 | |
| Designation: | KC-135 | |
| Version: | A | |
| Nickname: | Stratotanker | |
| Designation System: | U.S. Air Force | |
| Designation Period: | 1925-1962 | |
| Basic role: | Transport | |
| Modified Mission: | Tanker | |
Specifications
| Length: | 136' 3" | 41.5 m | |
| Height: | 38' 4" | 11.6 m | |
| Wingspan: | 130' 10" | 39.8 m | |
| Empty Weight: | 109,000 lb | 49,433 kg | |
| Gross Weight: | 297,000 lb | 134,693 kg | |
Propulsion
| No. of Engines: | 4 | ||
| Powerplant: | Pratt & Whitney J57-P-59W | ||
| Thrust (each): | 13,750 lb | 6,235 kg | |
Performance
| Range: | 4,000 miles | 6,441 km | |
| Cruise Speed: | 552 mph | 888 km/h | 480 kt |
| Max Speed: | 600 mph | 966 km/h | 522 kt |
| Ceiling: | 40,000 ft | 12,191 m | |
Known serial numbers
Examples of this type may be found at
| Museum | City | State |
| Castle Air Museum | Atwater | California |
| Dyess Linear Air Park | Dyess AFB | Texas |
| March Field Air Museum | Riverside | California |
| Scott AFB | Scott AFB | Illinois |
KC-135A on display
Castle Air Museum | March Field Museum |
Recent comments by our visitors
| Donald Walker Pensacola, FL | I was one of the first Baby Boomers back during the end of the vietnam war 1972. In basic tranning I signed up for anything flying and had no idea what a inflight refueler was, more that that I didn't know aircraft could be refueled in air. 100 recuites when in for the medical flight check and 6 of us come out. Three refuelers and three B-52 gunners. ( that was my second choice ). First I was sent to water training in south Florida , that was great then up to washington state for land. Got put in a box for a day the size of a suite case and then throwned in a camp over night with a few hundred others. Then out in the woods for a few days of camping and dieting. Then Castle Air Force Base in Calif. for four months.After seven months of training I arrived at my base for the next three and a half years, MINOT NORTH DATOTA. We heard that southern boys went north and northern boys went south. I think that was true. On November 1, 1972 I was in South East Asia refueling F-4s and F-105s in the largest thunder storm I ever saw. The other tanker never showed so I had a total of 34 fighters that day. For six hours I stayed in the boom pod refueling one after the other. Some time during all the refueling one of the F-4 flamed out and lost power just as it was about to hook up. I made the connection barely and stopping him from running me over. He took on about 3000 pounds and re-started his engines and went back to his base. O'h by the way the just so happened to be the first time I ever refueled without an instructer at my side. This TTY was for three months and was a trip of a lifetime. All was fun and games until the first B-52 was shot down in Dec. 1972 and things changed. No more flashing pictures at each other during refueling and we all had our helments on. I went back to the states in Feb 1973 and returned in April, by then alot had changed. I traveled all over the world , Spain, England, Alaska, japan, Guam and many others. Every Time a TTY was up to leave Minot North Dakota, I raised my hand. I flew maybe 100 different KC-135s and Only one tryed to kill me twice. 0157 was the tail number out of Barksdale, La. I lost two engines in South East Asia and had my hand on the bailout bar, I told my pilot if one of the other two even burps I was out of there. Thats when the rest of the crew put on there parachutes and helments. The following year in Aug. 1974 we were taking off in Merdrid Spain in 115 heat and we got 0157 again that day. Cars had to stop on the freeway to let us go by we were so low. The pilot had to make several hard turns just to stay away from hitting buildings. I saw that plane when we arrived and told the crew this is not good, not good at all, and it came true that day. We made it with no room to spare and refueled two F-4s painted sand color a first for us. Over the three and a half years flying the KC-135, most was boring hours of just flying or standing alert for days on end. I did meet some of the best people on this earth that you trusted with your life and they trusted their with yours. I traveled the world and meet so many people outside of the service was well as in, refueled the first F-15 over Alaska and racked up over 1750 flight hours. Not bad for a 23 years old. 01/20/2012 @ 08:53 [ref: 52178] |
| The Liberty Bell Philadelphia, PA | Hu Jintao is a communist pig!
China's communist domination of the eastern region will come to an end. Communism will fall across the world at last. The chinese people will be freed and the dreams of Chiang will be realized. Communist China must die!Communist China must die!Communist China must die!Communist Communist China must die!Communist China must die!Communist China must die!Communist China must die!Communist China must die! 09/03/2011 @ 06:33 [ref: 48452] |
| joe Chiovari , FL | Joe, I took a ride on one of those "Trash Hauler" C-130s from Andersen AFB to Palau and Yap. Palau had a rather primitive airport terminal, which consisted of a thatched-roof hut the size of a barn, and topped off with a 1950s Fire Truck standing by, just in case.. Yap was interesting for two reasons: There was the imminent departure of the famous "Flying Missionary" in his beautiful Beech 18--parked next to his home on the airport--to Australia, and a passenger we picked up at the airport who was engaged in tracking down one Amelia Earhart. I could not hear much of the conversation between the C-130 crew and this scholar, but I did manage to overhear that he was commissioned by an American University to uncover evidence that Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese, and held on one of the islands occupied by the Japanese Navy.
08/06/2011 @ 11:55 [ref: 45848] Pacific Missionary Aviation was the name of that outfit. The chief pilot (and only pilot-Jerry R....) flew out to one of the atolls on a very bad day to medi-vac out one of the natives. He ran out of fuel on the way back and had to ditch that B-18 in heavy seas. All there was for NAV at the time was a Loran radio and the B-18 was equipped with it (per Jerry). Air Force Search and Rescue found them and all were saved. Jerry got a nasty busted up nose but otherwise he was okay. I worked for him in trade for a spare room attached to that hanger sitting behind a similar thatched roof "terminal" you mention. I was staying up till then at a hotel in Colonia (the Capitol) but with the monsoon seasonal rains turning the road between the airport and the town in a sliding ooze the little Datsun pick-up truck I was renting couldn't climb the small hills unless I packed the bed with school kids walking to the elementary school located halfway to the airport on the highest ground. After that it was a downhill run and many times I slid off into the ditch. Very messy. I helped Jerry perform maintenance on their Britten Norman Islander and another STOL, polyhedral low winged twin made by the Evangel Aircraft Company. I painted the seagull logo on the vertical fin of that airplane and the initials PMA beneath it. Both airplanes were a constant battle against corrosion. To this day I can't stand the smell of LPS3. Jerry was on furlough from World Airways. PMA was actually operated by the Liebenzell Mission in Germany by a man who was still an ardent Nazis at that time. Strange world in a stranger place. The B727 I was there to dismantle on Yap burned because the fire truck from Colonia had a leak and was empty by the time it made the crash site. Truth! No lives lost, though. The only injuries were a broken ankle (pilot) and others minor srapes and bruises sustained by the passengers and crew as they ran through the jungle scrub getting away from the plane. The airport is still surrounded with bomb craters from WWII and people got hurt falling into them or running into the burned out hulks of what was left of the Japanese airplanes near the wreck hidden in the scrub. The Coast Guard was there to man the Loran station on the northern-most point of the island. The Navy Seabees (CAT - Civil Action Team) kept a presence there as well. Their corpsman sewed me up after I got a nasty laceration on my arm one day. There was no medical facility on Yap. The Andersen runs kept both organizations supplied. Because of the monsoons causing transit delays from their locations both outfits were always late when the C-130s arrived. So, I marshalled them onto the terminal tarmac on those days. 08/13/2011 @ 13:39 [ref: 46029] |
| Tom Dembowski , VA | Hi David;
It is a KC-135-Q that had the special fuel system to refuel the “SR”. At RAF Mildenhall, I had lots of fun with “Q” crews that tried to fly my “A” frame. It took some time to teach them the differences. As for the “SR”, when she was parked in the shed, there were half dozen buckets under the aircraft. But the “SR” fuel is very thick, thus the leaks were a very slow drip. The fuel that was collected in the buckets would be recycled. Very little fuel would be wasted. 08/08/2011 @ 07:41 [ref: 45898] |
| David Baker Sacramento, CA | I noticed the SR-71 photo in your display, and I remember the special QC-135s that refueled those planes. They dispensed JP-7 fuel that was usable at high altitudes. After each takeoff, the Blackbird would have to A/R quickly in order to complete it's mission profile, so one of the special tankers were always airborne to perform that chore. The SR-71 was notorious for leaking fuel on the ground. Much of their fuel load was wasted just sitting there. 08/06/2011 @ 20:13 [ref: 45876] |
| David Baker Sacramento, CA | Joe, I took a ride on one of those "Trash Hauler" C-130s from Andersen AFB to Palau and Yap. Palau had a rather primitive airport terminal, which consisted of a thatched-roof hut the size of a barn, and topped off with a 1950s Fire Truck standing by, just in case.. Yap was interesting for two reasons: There was the imminent departure of the famous "Flying Missionary" in his beautiful Beech 18--parked next to his home on the airport--to Australia, and a passenger we picked up at the airport who was engaged in tracking down one Amelia Earhart. I could not hear much of the conversation between the C-130 crew and this scholar, but I did manage to overhear that he was commissioned by an American University to uncover evidence that Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese, and held on one of the islands occupied by the Japanese Navy. 08/06/2011 @ 11:55 [ref: 45848] |
| Joe Chiovari , FL | Rich - The glass net floats were a prize among G.I.'s.
While on Yap Island in '80/'81 taking apart a pranged B727, several Coast Guard re-supplies from Clark cycled through (C-130) and every one of the pilots asked me if there were any of these glass spheres around. There were many. The Japanese couldn't get supply ships in due to the constant U.S. presence so they started their own fishing effort - big time. There were lots of these spheres in two sizes. The large one, like you have, was pretty rare but there were many of the smaller - bluish colored - spheres about 9 inches in diameter. The larger ones were a greenish hue. They were still being discovered around the island by the fishermen from each village even when I was there. I put out the word to the villages that I was buying these things for $3.00 and $6.00 each, which was huge money to them. Every month I had a cache of them and sold them for $25.00 and $50.00 each to the pilots who cycled through. They bought me out each visit. Oh, the spheres that still had the rope mesh around them were an additional $25.00 up-charge. I began an additional enterprise of having the ladies of each village make their village-specific ceremonial grass skirts and neckwear and had them packaged with a little history of the respective villages on card stock, and a brief history of the island as given by the elders of each village. These were also moving at a good rate to the visiting military, as well as civilians on an island-hoping tour of this area. I left the "business" to the top village (caste system) elders when I left. All proceeds went to the island touring and commerce effort for advertising. It was declared a War Memorial and looked exactly the way it was at the war's end. When I got there the airfield was littered with Japanese aircraft in various states of disrepair (Zeros, Bettys, Judys, Tabbys), as well as gun emplacements and fortifications. Teragi Beach, Guam. That was an all-out effort going up and down that hill. Greg Onus was there my first 3 months and we biked to Teragi a lot. Yep, the downhill run could be a treacherous event. I did exactly what you did my first run. Damned near killed me going back up. Greg was already in shape and he waited at the top of the hill for 15 minutes for me to arrive. Eventually I was able to keep up. 08/06/2011 @ 09:06 [ref: 45823] |
| Rich Hasse Montello, WI | I remember when I was TDY there my assistant and I had the hair-brained idea to ride our bikes down to Turagi Beach. Remember the stop sign in the middle of the hill? We had our brakes on the whole way down and blew right through the stop sign and off the road at the t-intersection at the beach. Fortunately, the cable between the posts meant as a guard rail at the intersection was broken and laying on the ground; however, the tangled end gpt caught on my assistant's rear sprocket and slowed him down like a carrier arrester cable. As for me, I narrowly missed a coconut palm and dumped it over into the sand on the beach. Fortunately, some of the 90-dayers were down there with a couple of rental "Guam-Bombs" and we managed to hitch a ride back to the TDY Barracks with them. Although, driving a Guam-Bomb to Turagi wasn't necessarily a good idea either as the brakes and uphill torque were never a guarranteed performance issue. We had a serious storm go through the are during that tour and I weent down to the beach afterwards on the north end amongst the lattes to look for net floats (as this was the best chance of them making over the barrier reef intact). Sure enough, I found one about 75-yards out under a latte that was about the size of a basketball; it sitting in my wife's flower garden right now. Found another at Wake near the shore battery on the north sideof Peale Island. 08/05/2011 @ 14:59 [ref: 44894] |
| joe Chiovari , FL | Alert Duty couldn't have been THAT BAD on Guam. I remember the alert crews driving around the base on their "Rent-a-Crowd" deployments, and their priority parking at various recreational venues. Where I did feel pity for them was when they did the "Buggy Rides" to Okinawa. They were escaping approaching typhoons (of which we had a few...) and those planes took off during Category-Terrible Weather, bouncing through hefty turbulence and driving rain most of the way. I also had a twinge of guilt when the bomber crews were rotated from the states during the Iran fracas. Those poor guys were billeted in sub-X3 unrenovated housing, and were issued a mattress, blanket and a pillow, along with a bucket to catch the rain leaking through the roof. Our barracks were recently renovated, and compared to the transient bomber flight crew ghettos, we were a gated community.
07/24/2011 @ 13:25 [ref: 43044] I never had to pull alert while on Guam. My TDY there was as an augmentee for the KC's pulling 30-day rotations. Any alert duty was pulled by the crew chiefs of those planes. I worked regular day and night shifts, switching every 30 days, and seldom had to do any of the regular crew chief work. I think there were about 10 of the augmentees for each shift. While I did assist the crew chiefs with servicing and inspections I didn't have to answer to them. I answered only to the driver (team leader) of the augmentees and he was also an augmentee (TSgt's and up). It was great duty. I'd also go to other places like Osan and Kadena when missions there came up. Guam was nothing but water burners. The B-52D models that were there at that time and the KC's both used ADI. Very loud flightline. The transit DC-8's were flying JT3D-3B bypass turbofans and quiet by our standards. There was an old WWII B-29 field on the island that was closed down after the war. I rode to it on a 10-speed bike and got completely lost in its maze of runways, taxi-ways and hardstands. It was huge. I'd bet Grissom's entire flightline would fit in a small corner of it. Everything was over-grown and looked the same. Every so often I'd see remnants of things left behind like rotting maintenance stands and equipment. At one turn there was a small cache of P-51 drop tanks strewn about. It took me a couple hours of riding around and making a mental map of it to figure out which way was out. I rode around that island a couple times on that bike visiting various villages and points of interest. Talafofo and Tarzan Falls were a regular visit for me. Gun Beach was also a place I'd go. Typhoon Pamela, which hit the island prior to my arrival, left a freighter aground and abandoned on the coral reef at Gun Beach. I climbed a rope to its deck and looked around. From its deck you could see all the Japanese gun emplacements carved out of the cliffs overlooking that beach. I also spent a lot of time snorkeling the inner reefs. Typhoon Pamela left the gate-guard B-52 upside down. It was bulldozed into the jungle off one end of the runway and another B-52D model (tail number 0100) put in it's place. I wish I had more time to take in all of Guam. Obviously, I enjoyed my short time there. 08/04/2011 @ 16:18 [ref: 44883] |
| Tom Dembowski , VA | Hi Rich.
I remember watchinig 1476 when she taxied in. Beside the tail not being straight, the wings also chaged angle just outboard of the outboard engines! In '84 I met up with the Nav from 1476's Mach one flight. We in processed at Castle AFB together. He gave me a lot more details of that flight, and how the Boeing engineers would only give them Mach 0.999 not Mach 1.0! 07/25/2011 @ 04:43 [ref: 43048] |
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