{"id":29077,"date":"2021-07-11T09:27:23","date_gmt":"2021-07-11T16:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=29077"},"modified":"2023-01-30T17:01:32","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T00:01:32","slug":"air-minded-great-vid-even-if-it-is-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=29077","title":{"rendered":"Air-Minded: Great Vid (Even if It Is French)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t do boats. I didn&#8217;t fly the Rafale. I&#8217;m not French. But this has to be the coolest video I&#8217;ve seen in a long while, and I want to share it.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"RAFALE FRENCH NAVY PILOTS - CHILLOUT 8\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Vw39nzIZgDk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot more to flying fighters than you&#8217;ll see here, but what you will see is plenty of formation flying and refueling. People often ask me what formation flying and aerial refueling are like; this video captures the experience. The production values, for a compilation video made mostly of GoPro clips, are outstanding (the copyright holder is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/CHASSEEMBARQUEE\/featured\">Chasse Embarquee<\/a><\/strong>, which has its own YouTube channel).<\/p>\n<p>Look closely during some of the close formation segments and you&#8217;ll see some inverted fingertip work. When you&#8217;re on the wing lead&#8217;s flight attitude doesn&#8217;t matter: you stay in position.<\/p>\n<p>The refueling segments are what really got my attention and made me want to share the video. You&#8217;ll see Rafale pilots refueling from a USAF KC-10, a French Airbus A330 (the tanker we should have bought), a French KC-135, and a Luftwaffe A400M. In addition, some segments show Rafales buddy refueling from other Rafales. The only tanker missing is the USAF&#8217;s new KC-46 (the one we shouldn&#8217;t have bought).<\/p>\n<p>Although two of the tankers, the KC-10 and KC-135, are equipped for boom refueling, the Rafale is not, and can only take on gas with the probe &amp; drogue method. The USAF KC-10 has hoses &amp; drogues mounted on the wingtips and centerline; the KC-135 has wingtip hose pods and a hose &amp; drogue attached to the end of the boom.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p><em data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?page_id=14450\"><strong> back to the Air-Minded Index<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t do boats. I didn&#8217;t fly the Rafale. I&#8217;m not French. But this has to be the coolest video I&#8217;ve seen in a long while, and I want to share it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1960,3,14],"tags":[2672,3627],"class_list":["post-29077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-minded","category-flying","category-military","tag-aerialrefueling","tag-formationflying"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29077"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32591,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29077\/revisions\/32591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}