This highly readable text follows the development and service use of this globe-trotting aircraft. It takes the reader through the wide range of tasks it has performed, including transport, tanker, weather recce, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, special operations, airborne command post and test-bed. 
Every variant and sub-variant is charted and the histories of each aircraft are found within. Includes details of the hundreds of units, past and present, that have flown Stratotanker. For military and aviation enthusiasts. 
Robert S. Hopkins III is a former U.S. Air Force pilot. He commanded an RC-135 Rivet Joint Crew during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Boeing Kc-135 Stratotanker: More Than Just a Tanker

Engineering & Transportation

Hopkins III, Robert S.

Transportation

Aerofax Midland Pub Ltd

Few would have imagined when "Dix" Loesch and "Tex" Johnston took the KC-135A up for its maiden flight on August 31, 1956 that some 60 years later, it would still be in front-line active service around the world. What began as a jet-powered replacement for the KC-97 to refuel Strategic Air Command's growing B-47 and B-52 bomber fleet soon evolved into America's first military heavy jet transport, an airborne command post platform capable of surviving and then commanding America's nuclear war plan, a testbed that enabled scientists to study the Earth, send men to the Moon and understand the power of the atom. 
Other variants of the KC-135 included a reconnaissance airframe that monitors arms agreements, gathers intelligence to understand the intentions and capabilities of potential enemies and provides real-time intelligence in combat - beginning with the war in Southeast Asia, and continuing to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Today, tanker versions of the KC-135 remain in service with Chile, France, Singapore, Turkey, and the United States, while reconnaissance variants operate with Great Britain and the United States. This is a fully revised and expanded edition of the original bestselling 'Aerofax' book and includes operational histories of the 80+ unique types, as well as individual details for all 820 airplanes by serial number including first flight, delivery, changes in configuration, attrition, and retirement. Appendices cover all units, a summary of each accident, display and stored aircraft, and record-setting achievements. 
The author is a former USAF pilot qualified on 17 types of KC-135s, EC-135s, and RC-135s, who bring both personal experience and a broad historical understanding to this definitive work on one the most significant military aircraft of the Cold War and beyond.

The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker: More Than a Tanker

History

Military

Crecy Publishing Ltd.

For nearly 35 years, Strategic Air Command (SAC) maintained a continuous 24-hour, 7-day alert presence with its nuclear-laden bombers, nuclear-tipped missiles, and tankers filled with jet fuel. Ready to launch with just 15 minutes' warning, the SAC alert force represented the most visible portion of America's strategic deterrent to any prospective attack on the United States or its allies. For the first time, this book provides a detailed history of the evolution of the alert force, the airplanes, missiles, and units involved, and the many successes and failures that shaped the alert force. Chapters cover SAC's earliest efforts to have bombers and tankers ready to retaliate, the origins and evolution of reflex alert, the changing demands on the alert force structure driven by improvements in Soviet defenses, the alert force during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, chrome dome airborne alert, SAC's ballistic missile alert force, the Post Attack Command and Control System, the impact of the war in Southeast Asia on the alert force, as well as the final years of alert and the abrupt end of the Cold War. Filled with extensive chronologies, tables, charts, maps, and photographs, the book is written by a noted author of multiple books and articles on SAC and its aircraft, as well as two former SAC pilots with alert experience in Titan IIs, B-52s, KC-135s, and EC-135s. Klaxon! is sure to become the definitive reference for this often overlooked but critically essential part of the Cold War.

Klaxon!: Strategic Air Command Alert During the Cold War (Europe@War)

Peacock, Lindsay

Rogers, Brian C

Helion and Company

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