Air Force pilots help Japanese go the distance

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Michael Cumberworth
  • 5th Air Force Public Affairs
NYUTABARU AIR BASE, Japan (AFPN) --  When your car runs low on gas during a long trip, it is easy to pull up to the pump like you have done a hundred times before. It involves a lot more planning if you are at 25,000 feet, traveling several times your average freeway speed and practicing a foreign language. When your vehicle is one of the most powerful jets in the world, it helps to have an experienced person along to show you the ropes.

This is precisely the case for a group of Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-15 Eagle pilots and their U.S. Air Force instructor pilots here on the island of Kyushu. During the training, the instructors taught air-to-air refueling from the classroom to the boom -- everything their students need to know to gas up at 310 knots while cruising three miles above the ocean. With training in hand, April 21 marked the first aerial refueling in JASDF history.

"In the short term, we hope to provide (the JASDF) the ability to refuel and extend their training," said Maj Pete Ford, an F-15 pilot from the 18th Wing at Kadena AB. "In the long term, we hope (our new contacts) have a long-lasting impact in (Pacific Air Forces). There's not much closer relationship than the brotherhood of flying."

The American team includes visiting instructor pilots from Yokota AB, Kadena AB, Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., and an American exchange officer stationed here. An aircraft fuels system technician from Kadena AB has also been on the ground for the past few days working with the Japanese maintenance crews. Their combined experience ensured a successful first run for the Japanese and set the stage not only for solo and evening flights, but also for a variety of future training using their own tankers in coming years.

"One of the most challenging aspects of this training obviously has to be language considerations, but more than that, it is that these are completely new concepts to them. So as instructors, we have to develop new analogies by using familiar ideas." said Ford.

"But the rewarding part is the actual joy of instruction. When you come up with an analogy that works, you teach them something, and you see it in their eyes. They get it," he said.