Oklahoma Airmen participate in Pacific exercise Published July 28, 2010 By Tech Sgt. Cohen A Young Defense Media Activity - Hawaii JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii (AFNS) -- Aircraft refuelers from the 465th Refueling Squadron at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., are keeping aircraft flying during the Rim of the Pacific exercise in the Hawaiian operating area. RIMPAC, a biennial exercise in its 22nd year, is hosted by officials from the U. S. Pacific Fleet and is the world's largest maritime exercise. The exercise demonstrates a commitment to working with global partners in guarding sea lanes of commerce and communication, protecting national interests abroad and ensuring freedom of navigation as a basis for global peace and prosperity. Members of the 465th RS, a Reserve unit, are responsible for refueling many of the aircraft participating in the exercise. There are participants from 14 nations, 32 ships, five submarines, more than 170 aircraft and 20,000 personnel involved. Although, Airmen from the 465th RS has been involved in RIMPAC for a number of years, this year the Air Force has a larger role, said Brig. Gen. Thomas Harwood, the Combined Force Air Component commander for RIMPAC. "The maritime component (officials) wanted to make the exercise more and more valuable," General Harwoodsaid . "They are bringing in more land components and more air components; therefore, the Air Force is going to be a big part of that." As a result of the larger role Airmen are playing, aircrews have been flying a lot and in some cases, squadrons have split into two teams to support the month-long exercise. "We're the second half rotation for the reserves and we've been very busy," said Maj. Benjamin R. Evans, a pilot with the 465th RS. "We, as a unit, have been flying daily, sometimes five lines a day or in some cases two, but it's been quite busy," Major Evans said. There are two types of refueling methods, boom and drogue refueling. Boom refueling is the more common method and uses a boom operator to control the refueling receptacle, while drogue refueling uses a basket to assist with the refueling process. "As a boom operator, you are affecting the contact and it's your responsibility to make sure the receptacle is in place, whereas in drogue refueling, everything is based on the pilot of the receiver of the gas, which takes away a lot of the responsibility of the boom," said boom operator Staff Sgt. Ron Davis. To date, the KC-135 Stratotanker aircrews from the 465th RS have completed at least 35 sorties to this point and delivered more than 100,000 gallons of fuel to aircraft from the Air Force, Navy and some coalition partners.