Photo By Master Sgt. Brian Ellison | A Polish F-16 approaches the boom of a KC-135 Statotanker during a nighttime refuel...... read more read more
POWIDZ, Poland — The 126th Air Refueling Wing recently wrapped up a two-week deployment to Poland in support of Operation Copper Arrow.
The operation enhanced combat readiness amongst NATO allies and partner nations, enabling them to rapidly respond to any threat. Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve aerial refueling tankers, KC-135s, KC-10s, and KC-46s, supported Copper Arrow on a two-week rotational basis.
“The Copper Arrow mission has been highly successful,” said Lt. Col. Spencer Leidel, the 108th Air Refueling Squadron commander, “fulfilling all of the required objectives for United States Air Forces in Europe, European Command and the eastern European theater.”
The wing also provided much-needed nighttime aerial refueling training for the Polish Air Force, Illinois’ partner under the National Guard’s State Partnership Program. According to Leidel, nighttime refueling can be a tricky task because it is hard to see visual references and it messes with depth perception.
“It becomes a team effort between both the boom operator and the receiver pilot to coordinate, make sure that they’re in the proper position for optimal refueling,” Leidel said.
On the ground, members of the 126th met with their Polish counterparts to discuss further ways to expand their partnership.
“Talking to our logistics readiness squadron commander, our civil engineer commander, as well as our aircraft maintenance squadron commander, we’ve identified specific opportunities,” said Maj. Mike McCarthy, maintenance squadron commander. “We can either do some annual training or bring a deployment for training here.”
The deployment was not without its problems. A part broke on one of the two planes. After some searching, a spare part was found at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, England, and installed a few days afterwards.
“It was a very good team effort,” McCarthy said, “Yesterday afternoon, for a few hours it was all-hands-on-deck. We had every maintainer that was here on this trip out there. Definitely a lot of coordination and a lot of hard work that went in from a lot of different agencies to make that happen.”
The 126th Air Refueling Wing’s two-week rotation comes to an end for COPPER ARROW, but McCarthy added that the Illinois Air National Guard looks forward to continue strengthening its relationship.
| Date Taken: | 04.04.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 04.10.2024 09:56 |
| Story ID: | 468218 |
| Location: | PL |
| Web Views: | 122 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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