Pear Harbor, Hawaii. (March 5, 2025): What is it like to maneuver a jet at three hundred miles an hour to within sixty feet of a giant flying gas station? For American pilots, it is routine. In this photo by Senior Airman Roann Gatdula, an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 203rd Air Refueling Squadron refuels an F-22A Raptor as they participate in Sentry Aloha 25-1. Staged annually by the Hawaii Air National Guard, the exercise involved 800 joint services personnel and thirty aircraft from six states.

The giant gas station is the KC-135, manufactured by the Boeing Company, which can fly fifteen hundred miles carrying up to 200,000 pounds of highly explosive jet fuel. The KC-135 dispenses fuel using either a fixed boom or an extended cable with a probe and a drogue to connect to receiving aircraft. There are approximately 390 of these refueling workhorses that enable U.S. planes to remain aloft almost indefinitely.

Hooking up to top off their tanks, however, is a tricky procedure for pilots. The dance begins with receiving aircraft approaching the tanker from below to position itself to accept the flying drogue or to attach to the extended boom. From there, the Officer In Charge (OIC) aboard the tanker deploys the fueling gear and monitors the controls. The OIC adjusts the volume of fuel to be delivered and—based on the weather and other local conditions—the speed of the refueling process. The OIC also uses video and infrared cameras mounted on the side of the fuselage to facilitate docking. Meanwhile, both aircraft maintain a short distance leaving any finite course corrections to the autopilot.

These complicated hook ups require an intricately planned schedule and highly skilled crews to orchestrate. Defense researchers are hard at work developing a fully automated aerial refueling system but, until then, these delicate mid-air dances continue.