[inaudible conversations] >> booktv is on twitter and facebook, and we want to hear from you. >> it's always been that honor out here to guest speakers. it's been been going on for a number of years at the museum. today we got a special speaker coming in. mark hasara, i i have to make e i said that right. >> i go by slug oh, my call sign easy. >> kc 135 pilot come he's got a story to tell and i think you will enjoy. mark, it's all yours. >> thank you. [applause] >> i want to thank you all for

coming today. we'll have really good weather and a lot of snow atticus was both get snow tonight so i i appreciate all of you spend some time coming in in this inclement weather from quite a ways away for some of you and spend the time to come listen to an old pilot talk about some of his stories. nobody takes ass without tanker gas. nobody. since 1921 aviators have tried to figure out what, to increase range, increase payload, lengthen endurance of aircraft while they are in the air. in november of 1921, wes may walk off of the wing of a lincoln standard biplane with a five-gallon gas can't on his back onto a curtiss jenny, walked through the wires and

dump the can't of gas in the tank. when he was done he said we've got to find a better way to do this. all right? and from there began air refueling. this was the first air refueling. this is a picture of the actual -- of 1921. now, they begin refueling in other ways. we owe a great debt of gratitude actually to the british. it was the british you really came up with better ways to do this, and a gentleman by the name of sir alan column. in 1923 he began experimenting with a system called the grapple line loop hole system where they literally had to weighted lines hook each other up, connect, and

they would take those from one plane to another and start putting gas in it. took about ten minutes to make that connection. but he was the man who created the very first company solely for air refueling. and in october of 1934, he began a company called flight refueling limited, , or srl as a color. in the basket system we use, where using right now on the battlefield in iraq. it looks like a big badminton shuttlecock on end of logos and you do the hummingbird method wake up second sticks a probing and get gas. most of her allies use the system. in november of 1947 the air force, a brand-new air force that we got to find a better way to do this. something that we can put in

airplane and put more gas in faster because bombers, , but te 47 and the b-52 were already on the drawing board and they would require a lot more gas. they tried the hose system first. it took them 110 minutes to fill up a b47. the general said that dog don't hunt. we had to come up with a better system. and, of course, boeing was first. boeing gave air force matériel command to b-29s and they began practicing what's the best method to do this and they came up with what was what you see on tankers now. that system is the primary system the united states air force uses. the first combat air refueling to place on the sixth of july, 1951 during the korean war.

three rf 80 photo reconnaissance shooting stars took off out of south korea and met up with the b-29 that had the hose drum system in it. they kind of hit the reset button on their endurance and now they had 330-mile range to go over north korea and take pictures of targets that had been struck, and they found some new targets. our refueling system that we use today uses the same methods. the first airplane to receipt of refueling system, believe it or not is back here in the other annex call the f84. this is a picture of a b-29 refueling at 80 forced off of

the coast of korea during the korean war. now, i want you to understand something about tankers. the united states air force perdomo has the most tankers in the world and we have become the air refueling were course. but i want to go back to a particular time. our air refueling fleet sometimes lays dormant. right now it is very active. i do want to take you back to a tuesday morning in 2001. a day when they went from fast asleep -- [inaudible] >> okay. are you guys having a hard time hearing me? [inaudible] >> all right. i'm just going to lay that down.

sorry, my wife gave me instructions. they kc-135 has been around for 60 years now. i want you to imagine this. kc-135 came into the air force fleet when the laser first fired, when around the world in 80 days won the oscar for best picture. and to musicians by the name of john lennon and paul mccartney met each other for the first time. also, a notorious terrorist from saudi arabia was born that same year, 1957. and that's what i want to talk to you about today. men and women in the air force all over the world get up

morning noon and night to operate and maintain this 60-year-old boeing airplane. and on the morning of 9/11, i went from fast asleep to full out war in 30 minutes. a good friend of our families, stacy, called on the phone at 5:50 in the morning in spokane, washington, and i could hear her through the phone as my wife it up. where is mark? where is mark? where is mark? what is a? will, he's here asleep next to us, , it's 5:50 in the morning, stacy. an hour month old son travis lay between us. turn on the tv right now. and airplane has hit a building.

and when they heard that i rolled over and grabbed the remote off of the nightstand. and i'm a news junkie and i turned on fox news to take a look. and what i saw left me conflicted. i saw a burning building where an american flight 11 had just hit six minutes before she called. and i thought to myself, what's going on here? i don't get this. how could an airline pilot with tens of thousands of hours hit the building on a clear and visibility unlimited day? but in my subconscious mind, my brain was screaming attack, attack, attack.

but like all bad news you tend to push that out, and they did. so i lay there in bed watching all this, watching all the commentators talk about this. and then at 6:03 a.m. i saw an airplane come from the right side of the screen, disappear behind the buildings and then the explosion of the south tower. i knew immediately what was happening. i just had everything confirmed to me. i shot out the bed and ran for the shower. because, people, i didn't want to go to work with messy hair. i don't know why. i thought that, okay? but i literally ran into the shower, and while i was in the shower i was going through in my mind things that i would have to do. i was in a very unique position.

just a few months before 9/11, i had just left of school which i helped create that teaches at the graduate level all of the skills of tanker pilot, tanker navigator need to build an entire air refueling system. and it was a school that i helped to create. it is now 8509 weapons squadron, part of the air force weapons to school at nellis air force base, las vegas, nevada, tickets like to take a version of top gun, only ours is better and longer, okay? to give you an idea, 482 academic hours, 18, five hour flights, a graduate level paper accomplished in 19 weeks. it's a time management problem, believe me, okay? but i just left the school that i created. i was there for four years so i

was kind of in a unique position. there were only two lieutenant colonel graduates of the school at the time, me and bobby who was running the school. guess who lost that coin toss? while i was in the shower, i'd only been in the shower about three minutes, , my wife came in and said the wing commander has just called and recalled you. you were to go to the command post right now. got out of the shower, got dressed, she laid a flight suit out, my boots and everything after all the kids are on the bed crying. i was pretty emotional. and as i sit in my flight suit my wife asked me, so the question, when do you think you will be home? i said i don't know. tonight, tomorrow, friday, i don't know. but i was at the largest tanker based on the west coast.

and believe me, the thought went through my mind, would i come home? but but i just kind of pushed tt out. got in the car, headed for the base and i began going through a mission analysis process of what i was going to have to do to be able to keep all of you safe. that was my primary goal, was defending the west coast of the united states so you and your families be safe. yes, my oath is to support and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. but it's also to protect the citizens of the united states, and i do come up with a plan that basically had to defend

every village, town and city from blaine washington on the canadian coast send isidro new mexico, 1000 threads 39 miles. that encompasses 334,000 square miles which is eb-5 corridor. that was my playground. i want you to understand how much gas we're talking about here. my kc-135 takes off with 180,00a typical mission. to put that in yemen terms, that means you could drive your vehicles, your family vehicles for 27 years. that's a much i'm using on one

mission, one mission. and i'm going through my mind and i'm going through all of the different airplanes that i'm going to be refueling. this is the f-15, the eagle, the primary air to air jet in the world 132 kills, zero losses. the f-15 that you see holds 13,800 13,800 pounds of gas intricately, and each one of those external tanks under the wings and under the belly hold another 4000 pounds apiece. 25,800 pounds. the f-15 burns 8000 pounds an hour at tactical speeds. 2000 pounds a minute in afterburner.

the f-15 can burn through its entire fuel load in 12 minutes. in afterburner. do you understand the kind of gas we're talking about here wax now, let's go to another airplane. this f-16 holds 7000 pounds internally, 2400 pounds per external fuel tank. it burns 2800 pounds per hour and 1100 pounds per minute in afterburner. it can burn through to its entl load in about ten minutes. these are the numbers that are going through my head while i'm thinking about this. because i have to defend five cities. i have to defend seattle, portland, san francisco, los angeles and san diego.

1379 miles. so as i'm going into work i'm thinking through all of this. it takes 18 tanker sorties to keep for f-15s, which is a normal formation, airborne in a 24 hour timeframe. 18 18 tanker sorties. now it's 18x5. if you are actively engaging targets, the first thing that comes off are these fuel tanks which exasperates our problem. now i need 22-24 tankers and a 24 hour timeframe, 24 hour timeframe, and again this is just one ship over one city. i was looking at having to offload and transfer out of

tankers along the west coast somewhere between seven to 12 million pounds in a single day. and that was going to go on for the foreseeable future. these are the things i i was thinking about as i'm driving into work. i finally get into the base and everything is locked down. there's a mile long line waiting to get through one gate. so i had a lot of time to think about what was happening. i got into the command post and in our work and the things that we do, it really is about relationships. i had to coordinate where we are going to refuel, how we were going to refuel, what airplanes we were going to refuel with a lot of extra agencies outside the government and inside the

government, such as the faa and so forth. fortunately because of the school that i was part of i knew some people. at the tanker control center where we're going to get all of our missions from, the vice commander happen to be my squadron commander a couple years prior while we were living in okinawa, japan. soup campbells was a weapons controller at the western air defense sector at mcchord air force base and he was somebody who are taught in our school. the portland f-15 unit was also part of our syllabus, but one really key important person was the wing scheduler at fairchild, and his callsign is -- [inaudible] wonderful portly lawyer now up in spokane. and he was thinking the same thing i was.

our first tasking come here we are getting ready to refuel all these airplanes, our first tasking, bozeman, montana, and we all like, what? what is so important in bozeman, montana, that we've got to go there next what we found out was there was a federal emergency management agency team that wasr an exercise. they are the first responders to disasters around the united states and they needed a ride back to washington, d.c. to prepare to go to new york and begin their investigation of the twin towers tragedy. so our first tanker out-of-the-box went to bozeman, montana, picked up that team and started heading east. the aircraft commander, a pilot on the paper and told me it was the creepiest mission he had

ever flown. the nobody was talking on the radios. normally those of you who are pilots or thin pilot out there no air traffic control is constantly talking. nobody was talking. he even asked chicago center, who are you working? he said you are the only airplane flying to my sector right now. it was that way all the way across. as they got east chicago, the chicago controller said, hey, have you guys get extra gas? we are a tanker. we always have gas. a couple of f-16s pulled up next to the tanker and said, the first question out of the guys mouth, are you guys okay? you see, we always watch out for each other, don't we?

always. we have a lot of recent examples of that. leave it to u.s. marine to borrow a truck and shuttle people to the hospital from the las vegas shooting disaster. an air force airman tackles a terrorist with an ak-47 on a train bound for paris. now a great movie. or, sadly, an assistant football coach in parkland, florida, sacrificing his life so that those kids could have a life. this is what we do as americans. we take care of each other. and that was my job to take care

of you. finally, missions start trickling in. our first mission is to canada. the canadian embassy called and said we need to move some of our f-18 fighters from calgary to a place called co-mocks in british columbia so they could start flying their air patrols. you have to remember, all of these airplanes are taking off and the tankers are the last thing they have thought about. and now they're finally going, oh, all these airplanes that are airborne need gas now. all right? so why cornet with the canadians and the americans, refueling airspace across canada. it creates a piece of airspace

near calgary called stampede after the famous rodeo that they have there, okay? not a lot of original thinking for us on these things, okay? near vancouver they created an error refueling area they called orca, because killer whales are always wandering around there. typically, error refueling airspace is 35 miles wide, 70 miles tall, long like a rectangle, and about 4000 feet deep. that's what we normally use, okay? but sometimes actually have fun naming these things, all right? in march of 2002 we found where bin laden was hiding. the mountains of afghanistan. we began in that month an operation called operation anaconda, and it did not go

well. initially. those of you that are familiar know that a sealed by the name of neil roberts got shot out of a helicopter and the first day and we were behind. we were offloading about 6 million pounds of gas a day in three refueling areas. remember, i'm a news junkie. i named them rush, o'reilly and hannity. but as military guys we've got to be bipartisan, so on the far left hand side of the country by death against the iranian border i opened two more that i called hillary and kennedy. during the shock and awe campaign in iraq, on the fourth night of the war we actually moved tankers into enemy territory directly south of baghdad we build two of these refueling rectangles, and i

named them reba and shania. big fan of their music. southwest of baghdad about 50 miles we opened another one we called faith after faith hill, because you had to have a lot of faith in the f-15 guys to protect you to go to faith because it's only 50 miles from saddam major databases. martina lay on, near the syrian border, and we were refueling airplanes that were supporting a special operations group called task force 20, a a group you wl hear very little about. they are the group that rescued jessica lynch from the hospital. so we had fun with this, okay? one of the one.

i had a bunch of nascar fans that worked for me. we came up with another contingency plan in the horn of africa. we need all the air refueling ares after nascar drivers and the highways the tankers move on after nascar circuit. it's just our way systematically planning all these things and giving it a name. so we began refueling all of these airplanes and i'm working through all of the issues that we have to come up with, because ladies and gentlemen, there were no rules of engagement for engaging airliners over the united states. my good friend raylan not got a phone call about the same time i did on that tuesday morning. this is what is wing commander said to him. come in now. don't worry about the lights. what? he said turn on the tv.

that's when he saw the same burning building i had been watching. ray was an f-16 pilot with the fresno air national guard. he went from fast asleep to full out war patrolling over san francisco international 45 minutes after he got a phone call in a a fully loaded chef, fully armed jet. but again we don't have rules for this, and they were actually working out some of these rules between he and his flight lead while they were flying over the top of san francisco. and he told me something else that was really creepy. san francisco, for those of you who know it it's a really big airport, not a turbine blade or a wheel was turning on that airfield. no trucks were moving, no airplanes were moving. everybody had been told get down

now. because we didn't know how many planes. i walked back in the house about 2 a.m. that night, i think. i was exhausted, mentally, physically, and sad. the next day, wednesday i worked another full day, and are graduates of the school begin getting phone calls. two of our graduates left that day for kendall air force base in florida. robert and staples built the error refueling plant to defend the entire united states, which by friday afternoon had a name,

operation noble eagle. on thursday nine-13, one of our graduates got a phone call to go to saudi arabia. he began building the refueling plan for what became known as air over afghanistan, operation enduring freedom. because we had the skills to be able to do that. we are had this intensive traig and we knew what to do. now, eight days after 9/11 i walked out the door, kissed my wife goodbye, held travis, month old, and flew to an airbase outside of turkey. and there begin operations over northern iraq and also creating

refueling plan for c-17 seven coming out of germany to drop humanitarian daily rations over the main cities of kabul, herat and kandahar in afghanistan because it was setting on winter. i stayed there until december. after 9/11 i had five deployments to the middle east. i calculated at one point in time travis was 18 months old and i've been home three months of his life. as military folks, we often have to sacrifice. now, i recently wrote a a book about all of these events and the things that i had to do called "tanker pilot: lessons from the cockpit."

the reason why i i wrote this k is because i want people to understand an aspect of military operations that you know about, very few have actually written about, but are critical for the united states to be able to operate on a global scale. mr. kc-135 ntc ten literally reached out and touched everything we do. last january to give an example, to planes went to libya to attack terrorist training targets there. the b-2s had 15 error refueling is in both airplanes took on a total between the two of them 955,000 pounds of gas to fly 30 our mission and drop 160

bombs. to give you a comparison, during the 23 days of the iraqi freedom shock and awe campaign, we offloaded 417 million pounds of gas in 23 days into receivers. and a lot of you are shaking their heads out there. i understand. what in the world does that mean? i had a guy in washington, d.c., a major in washington, d.c. called me on the phone and ask me that question, because his general wanted to know for his powerpoint slide. i did a very unprofessional thing. i hung up on him. i didn't have time. he called me three times. finally wore me down. the third time i said let me find out.

that was the number i i came up with, 470 million pounds. this is great, this is great, what does it mean. general mike moseley had just bought a brand-new ford f1 50. do any of you have a ford f1 50 truck? you will love this, okay? 417 million pounds allow both of you to drive your truck 2685 265 roundtrips to the moon or eight roundtrips to the sun. that's what we did in 23 days. i cheated a little bit. i use 20 miles per gallon just because it makes the math easier. i'm a political science major. i don't do math. and my job was math, all right? on a typical day during the 9/11 noble eagle we were doing about

six to 8 million pounds per day. that would allow you to make 161 roundtrips to the moon in your f1 50 truck. unfortunately for me that made into all the newspapers back home and general moseley came up to me and said, sligo, what did you do with my truck? because it was in all the news, okay? 2006 or 85 roundtrips in general most recent truck. he knew what i had done but he was just jiving me. he's a great commander. he's one of best commanders i ever worked for. but, folks, i tell you this because in this book i want you to understand nobody kicks ass without take a guess. mr. kc-135 is going to be going

until 2040 pick is going to refuel airplanes of the future. this is what it looks like behind a kc ten. this is the refueling system facilities airplanes of the future -- okay? even luke skywalker knows, nobody kicks ass without tanker gas. it's a critical part of our nation's defense, and so important to how we do things. the next time you read about b-2s going to north korea, i want you to remember, those b-2 bombers are being refueled by a 60-year-old airplane that in many cases the flight crews, their grandfathers flew.

and now possibly their grandchildren. and they're going to transfer amounts of gas that are unimaginable to most of us. in a single day, the single week or over a 23 day time frame. we always reach out to help people. it's been my honor to help protect each and every one of you during my 24 year career flying around in a kc-130 five, near point i want to fly ever since i was a kid watching 707 school over the top of my head on aviation boulevard at the end of the runways of los angeles international airport. i got to live a childhood dream, and it was fantastic.

i spent a lot of time away from home. three of my friends are no longer here, robin, dale, john. but our job was to defend you, to take care of you. on a clear visibility unlimited day or when it is snowing outside. i appreciate all of you coming today. it was my honor to be able to serve in the united states air force for 24 and half years, and to fly kc-135 and be involved in four different wars, desert storm, alex force, enduring freedom and iraqi freedom.

i appreciate you coming on a fairly cold day outside, and i really appreciate c-span's booktv and brian being here today to film this. now folks, , we have a few minus left and i want to open it up for questions. so that you can ask me anything you want to, and what i'm going to do is hand mic as to somebody. if anybody has questions, i'm going to open up to questions. terry has the mic. please, anybody. go ahead. >> where does all these gallons of gas come from? who's in charge of those? you have thousands of gallons of fuel for you to use. >> great question.

so almost every base to operate out of, particularly tankers, has very large fuel farms. like you see at any airport. but again we are using so much gas that we can only fly out of certain places, a prepared military airfield, and that is not most of the bases in europe, by the way, or international airports. they store all that fuel. they had three, 15,000-gallon fuel tanks that kept the base going, okay? but here's the thing. we had to fill them up every three days. do you want to know how long that line was?

284 284-85-gallon gas tanks noso tail is four kilometers long and we had to do that every three days. just to keep the base going,, okay? of the tankers were using the most gas, okay? i'll give you another example. i never thought i would learn as much as i did about petroleum, oil and lubricant while i was deployed as the chief of the air refueling team, i was the chief during operation iraqi freedom and shock and awe campaign. we ran a gold coast country out of gas. think about that for a minute. the united arab emirates could not produce enough gas in a single day to satisfy the voracious appetites of the 20 kc tense and other airplanes that

were operating. we had to bring in a large carrier, they hold 400, 500,000 deadweight tons, and we almost drained it. we were about four days from draining it, okay? so we had to come up with some very inventive ways of dealing with the amount of gas we were using. one of them was bringing in an oil tanker, and it literally pumped it right from dubai into its tanks and filled it up. but we almost emptied it. the prince when he was talking to general moseley one day, general moseley was saying we're having a problem with gas, and the prince looked at general and said, general, you in the kingdom of saudi arabia. fuel will not be an issue. and, of course, i'd ask him what

exactly did he mean by that? there's two airfields in saudi arabia that will never run out of gas. do you know why? .com ron and jetta have their own refineries. they can make 3 million gallons of gas in a day. and obviously they need that, particularly and jetta because that's what everybody comes through. it's got 31 ways, they can handle 1 million passengers a day i found out. we have to have come to answer your question, we have to have prepared bases that have very large fuel storage capacities to be able to operate tankers out of. and one of the things on my checklist when we had to find out places to put tankers was to

see what their storage capacity was, and about 70% of the airbases we looked at came right off the list because they didn't have the capacity to store enough fuel to operate tankers with. and then we run a country out of gas. who would have thunk it, , you know? anyway, i hope that answers your question. long answer to a short question. anybody else? over here. and then there's one in the back, terry. tell ethan hello when you give him his book. >> so you said -- is is working? you said it's the tanker the future as well, the 135. is it just such a great airplane that there is no improving on design? is mostly financial reasons? why is it being used so long? >> well, that's an old airplane. >> i'm getting old. the airplane is getting old.

i'll give you a good example, okay? the spring of 2015, my wife and my son, we went to europe. i'm retired right now. we went to europe, spent about 70 days over there, did ten countries and was time to come home, we went to fly home, space available. which by the way is a a great y to get around here we flew over on a c-17 and flew home on a kc-135. they kc-135 we flew home on was tail number 8874. 22 years previous, 8874 was part of a 909 air refueling squadron, my air refueling squadron in

okinawa, japan. but this is the funny part. it was my airplane. it had my name on it. and here i am 22 years later line the same airplane home with my wife and son. so i sat down at the table in the cockpit and i wanted to see what it had done in those 22 years. it had 24,000 hours on the airframe. it was just coming back from supporting isis inherent resolve, and had asked thousand landings on it. man, if this body had 6000 landings on it, i would be going to the desert and be restored, too. but it continues to be that air refueling workhorse. we've all heard, many of us have heard if it is bowing, we are going. and they created a fantastic airplane. they really did.

it was way ahead of its time. and for those of you that want to find out more about how they got the 707 and the kc-135, actually need to turn the rent that kc-135 came first and then the 707. go find the book "the jetliners" and it tells the story of how bill allen the ceo went into the boardroom and said i need $16 million. to create an airplane to make into an airliner and every laugh at him. he had no customers for the airplane. nobody wanted it. everybody thought turboprop airplanes is how we're going to move passengers. he went ahead and build it

anyway. it's really a fascinating story. those of you going through india programs really need to read this story. because he took a big risk and created this airplane that's iconic now, the 707. when i was standing as a young kid at the end of the runway on aviation boulevard, there were only 35 or 40 feet above the head because it just rounding out to come into land. that's how i knew i wanted to be a pilot. why work for a living when you can be a pilot? i was hooked watching d.c. eights, lockheed constellations, 707 coming into lane. i knew that i wanted to fly a 707. they have programs to keep it going until 2040, a very expensive airplane to run. fortunately, tinker air force

base to do dapl maintenance on aircraft, they do an amazing job of maintaining this airplane. it's got a new cockpit in it. it's got beat up wings. read the story about the kc-135 got the 56 engines. that's another great nba story, okay? that consortium was two weeks away from folding when the french air force bought those engines for the kc-135 and proved these are the engines to put on this airplane. because our offload capability increased by 40% from old water burning jct sevens. some of us a been around enough member of the old water burning. i remember 1:00 in the morning, the 135 135 to take up with thd

water engines. i knew it was coming and that set off every car alarm in the apartment complex i was in because of the vibration. but we had to put new engines on the airplanes and it was driven by quiet, europeans were saying your jet engines are too noisy. we have got to be quieter because of where all their airfields are around. so that was really the driving piece. that engines more than pay for itself. it continues to get upgrades but those are dropping off now that the kc 46 is coming soon, okay? coming soon are right? and will be a great airplane. it's like everything that comes to the air force in its inventory. it's got growing pains just like this one did, just like the f-16 did. nobody wanted this ugly airplane, you know?

like guess what's the one airplane all the ground guys want to see over it? that one right there. you can see ten external hard points. look at the size of that gun. maverick missiles. this is the perfect airplane to support our troops. so is the f-16, so is that the one that is upfront and b-52s. those of god to a lot of retrofits. the most recent one for the b-52 is it has like a revolver type of gun system in the bombay so it will carry more conventional weapons. it just kind of goes click click click and drops bombs off of it. so this old airplanes will be around for a while. b-52s you may see that 90 years. >> i don't think curtis lemay thought that. back when his airplanes came into being.

but you may see that. we had a question in the back, terry. i just want to ask how long it takes to fill the kc-135 up with fuel, how much time? >> okay. really good question. because this had to be part of our planning. when airplane landed we would have to schedule it again for another flight because on the ground it's not doing us any good. a really good fuels crew during desert storm could put 155,000 pounds of gas and 5000 pounds of water on the airplane in about 45 minutes. our rule of thumb was two hours, okay? but the crews were so good at what they did, and by the time the war started, so proficient, that the got it down to 45

minutes. so we scheduled an airplane after it landed about an hour and 30 minutes later it was back in the air. the 190 takers that we have for the shock and awe campaign were flying about four sorties a day, five and half hour long, and the reason we could do that was because the maintenance crews, god bless them, because they are out there in the terrible weather, heat, son, snow, maintaining his airplanes. but they could turn the airplane in about 45 minutes. so we were using about an hour and a half for every airframe to fly missions, and we had to because something i talk about in the book is homeland defense.

at 6:03 in the morning there was less than ten takers on alert across the united states. at 4 p.m. that afternoon there was over 120 on five-minute alert. those of you out there that sat on nuclear alert in the strategic air command days knows that when a way back in 1992. we actually had to have an airman go out to the nuclear alert facility at fairchild, plug his phone and call the command post because we did dit know if the phone line still worked. there was seven airplanes on alert at fairchild that afternoon. we had zero in the morning. for boom airplanes and three drone airplanes. and again we generated those airplanes fairly quickly because

we knew we are at war. even though we're protecting the united states, it would have taken about 45 minutes to load all the airplanes up and send them on their way. so it's about the same for our model, about 45 minutes, 50 minutes. but that helps us a lot. and again, folks, it's because of these young 19-year-old, 20-year-old kids that do this for us, that are the maintainers that load the fuel, run the engines, all of these different things that keep these old airplanes going. you know, i'm just a guy and a leather coat and glasses that flies. and it's because of those young kids that are out there even now all over the world maintaining these jets that keep these things going here behind me and out in front of the museum.

rate question, thanks. anymore? jared and then in the back. >> how long does it take to refuel and f-15 in-flight, and how many can you refuel with one tank load? >> great question, jared. .. normally only bombers will take the 600 pounds per minute. i transferred 103,000 pounds

into a b-52 over guam and it me 22 minutes. that's pretty typical. a friend of mine flew c-5's and was flying nonstop from dover delaware and he took 260,000 pounds of gas off of three tankers. they normally will take about ten to 12,000 pounds but we can only use two pumps. we are only using the 1500 pounds per minute. about 12,000 pounds per minute.

the strike eagle. typically take 15,000 pounds. about five minutes. then we allow two minutes for cycle time as the jets come jets come off of the wing. that all goes into our schedule and how we figure how long an airplane needs to be in an airplane. it varies depending on the way i'm doing it. i can use all four pumps they want to get their gas and go. that's what it does.

that's a long time to be hooked up. you know the real definition of flight right. that is really the definition for flying. the most of the time it is pretty boring. we don't talk to each other sometimes. we have an interphone system that they can hook into through our nozzle and we can talk back and forth but most the time it's come up get your gas and it's gone. unless you're 22 minutes on the bill and then sometimes you will talk about what are you guys eating in your boxed lunches. those are the kinds of conversations we sometimes had.

have a question in the back. that is a great lead in to what you're talking about. with all of the hours and the airplane what was your scariest moment i do not even have to think about that one. it was not in combat. i'm in hawaii for crying out loud. everybody breaks in hawaii right ? but we are bad it broke. and we didn't know it. i took off a couple days before memorial weekend out of hawaii with an airplane we have just swapped out with grand forks north dakota on her weight back to japan. passing 10,000 feet the airplane began to depressurize. with 26 space available passengers in the back to include a 7-month-old baby

that had just met the grandparents for the first time. we declared a precautionary meeting hey we are broke we need to come back and landed back in hickam air force base. came out the next day in the form said we couldn't duplicate your problem. i said we probably couldn't duplicate on the ground but i bet we could duplicate it in the air. no space eight passengers. he was hacked. i have all of these people that need to go back. you guys never take people. i wasn't gonna take him. no matter how irate he was going to get at me. and it was was a good thing we didn't.

passing 10,000 feet we depressurize again. i got up to 16,000 feet and i made the first mistake a very critical one. i said let's investigate it's that type a personality thing. so we kept going away from hawaii. we were about 200 miles west of hawaii when a crew chief from the back came up and was literally scared out of his mind and he taps me on the shoulder and were all on oxygen. i did not know if we work were in the lose oxygen pressurization side everybody go on oxygen. that was my second mistake. he came running up and he's tapping me on the shoulder turnaround i know what's wrong.

i really look of terror. and i looked back like this and i said there's two crew chiefs wrenching up the floor. and another one pulling a firefighters mask and pulling a pin on an extinguisher between his knees. they got the piece of plywood up in flames went everywhere. that piece of plywood burnt for about two minutes while they were trying to get it out. we were on fire. some of you may be wondering what that has to do with pressurization. what we found out in your homes you have duct work that goes underneath the floor that your air conditioner and heater systems use to move the

air around. 1300-degree air was coming off of the engines and was going through two cracks in a manifold under the floor. on started the wood on flight -- fire. that was not the worst thing. the air was also blowing by the way my wife does know the story. 1300-degree air was also blowing on the allocate -- elevator cables that make it go up and down. and we did not know if they were going to freighter what was going to happen. all three flight control systems are hooked to those cables so as we are coming around in the turn like this

to come back i have my copilot put in a box a transponder and push a button that flashed our position on the radar screen i thought we were going to blow up. it was also exhaling 1300 degrees air. i'm a flight control problem afire and a fire and i have hot air blowing on gas tank. how's my day going so far. honolulu center came up and said we were busy fighting a fire. i kept turning.

we see you squawking emergency. state nature of emergency. the honolulu center standby. he waited maybe two more minutes i started defending -- descending down 9,000 feet. i want him to see where we were going to blow up so he could find that debris field. for kinda getting into all of the airplanes are coming into land. he called the guy and said standby. we are still fighting in the fire the fire in the back. and finally he came over real exasperated and tell us what's happening. they are currently fighting a fire in the back of the airplane i head of bleed duck

failure. everything went quiet on the radio. no one was talking for about 90 seconds like they were trying to listen to the explosion to the radio or something. i finally came back they finally got the fire out. and the crew chief said you need to come see this. they patched the two holes with putty and they have blown out and started the thing on fire. we came back in and landed. they did not want to taxi back. we got four days off in honolulu because we caught fire.

remember what i told you about boredom. it was one of those extreme terror days. and all pilots that have flown have a similar stories. i see some of you out here shaking your heads. i know. you have similar stories. but that was a scariest one. that was the day even the first night of desert storm. it didn't scare me as much is that flight. we all went downtown on the beach and looked at each other and didn't say a whole lot. we just limped through a pretty death-defying experience. >> think you folks for coming today. i really appreciate the opportunity to get. talk to you. i hope you learned something

from this and what it takes to operate tankers and what it was like being a tanker pilot for 24 and a half years. again, thank you for coming and not a really good day outside and i appreciate your time. thank you very much. [applause]. we do have a few of marx books back here if you like to get one. think you. [inaudible conversations] book tv tapes hundreds of author

programs around the country all year long. here's a look at some of the events we are covering this week. we are in new york city and barnes & noble take your britney cooper to offer thoughts. and how it can be harnessed to bring about social and political change. tuesday we are back at barnes & noble where the former communications director for hillary clinton jennifer palmeri shares her thoughts on how future female leaders can succeed. also that day anthony hinton is at the alabama book smith. he spent nearly 30 years on death row. before being released in 2015. ben austen is at the newberry library in chicago to provide a history of the green housing project which at one time provided public housing to nearly 20,000 people. and on thursday at the water street bookstore in new hampshire history professor jason sokol will call the nations reaction.

that is a look at some of the event that we will be covering this week and many of these events are open to the public. look for them to air in the near future and on book tv on c-span two. [inaudible conversations] good evening. and welcome to the national press club on a warm evening with the temperatures in the 70s just as they were on saturday june 171972. for those of you born will before that date yre