In the Air Force, whenever you travel for a short period of time on AF business from where you are permanently stationed, you are said to be sent TDY (Temporary Duty). As an airman administrator, TDYs were few and far between. The only one I had on Guam was to Okinawa for the typhoon evacuation I told you about last week. But, as I explained last week, I wormed my way onto a week long B-52 training mission to Australia a month or two before we rotated out of Guam back to the States.
I flew over to Australia on a KC-135 tanker. I was the only female on the trip and boy, I was treated like a queen. All the men, enlisted and officers alike, were incredibly kind and thoughtful in watching out for my well being from the minute I attended the first trip planning briefing to the after action review.
The flight from Guam to Darwin, Australia, where we spent that week, was especially memorable. On the flight over, the tanker’s boom operator came over and said we were going to refuel a B-52 in flight. He asked if I wanted to watch from the boom pod. You bet I did even though I had no idea what that involved.
I was led to the boom pod. I panicked for a moment when I saw it. It is a very short (in height), narrow, long space in the tail end of the aircraft. I crawled in head first and lay on my stomach on one of the 2 bed-like berths. There is a chin rest for both comfort and to keep your head in a position to view what’s outside the big glass window looking out and down from the butt of the plane. I’ve always been a little nervous about flying and heights, so I figured I’d be nervous the whole time I was looking out that window laying on my stomach. It felt like if someone hit the brakes hard, it would catapult me right out of the aircraft.
Surprisingly, it was far more comfortable, both mentally and physically, than I expected it to be. Looking down from that perch didn’t seem real enough for it to be scary. And over the years they must have tweaked the ergonomics for the men (and women, now) who fly those booms for a living.
The boom operator (let’s call him Joe, although I have no recollection of his actual name) explained everything to me as he was preparing for the refueling. It wasn’t long before the massive (length-159 feet, wingspan-185 feet) 8-engined bomber flew right up to the window I was facing. It’s a little frightening to see how close the two planes get during the operation. The photo on the post is the one I actually took and doesn’t do justice to how close that plane was to us. I was looking right at the faces of the pilots through their cockpit windows and could see the whites of their eyes! The refueling boom’s max extension is 48 feet. You do the math as to how close the 2 aircraft have to be to each other…flying at about 300 mph.
The whole experience was thrilling, and truly a once in a life-time event. I never even remotely wished I could do something like that. Let me tell you though, when I told Randy what happened, he was green with envy. He was a great sport, but I know he would have appreciated the experience far more than I did. I would have traded places with him if that had been an option.
When we got to Darwin, our base of operations was a Royal Australian Air Force Base there. I was billeted with the few women who were stationed in Darwin there. Their barracks were open air, no doors, windows, or locks on the lockers. It was weird, but that’s the way it was.
For some reason exchanging USAF uniform items with the Aussies seemed to be a thing. There were lots of male uniform items changing countries. I returned to the barracks after duty one day and found someone had stolen all my uniform items from my unlocked quarters. As the only female my uniform items must have been in demand.
I was in quite a pickle though, having only civilian clothes to wear on duty. When word got to the Aussie base commander why I was out of uniform, he was furious. He got on the base communication system (basically a load speaker) and said my uniform items better be returned or there was going to be big, big trouble when they found out who stole them. The next day, all my uniforms magically appeared in a field on base, filthy dirty, but otherwise in pretty good shape.
Darwin seemed to me to be what I envision San Francisco was like during the Gold Rush in the 1860s. Dry, dusty, wooden buildings with porches, cobblestone streets, very primitive actually. But it was so unusual that it was fun to be there and explore. The most magnificent and colorful birds I’ve ever seen were everywhere. There’s a wildlife park not far from there near a town I remember being called Berry Springs. I think we had to pass through towns called Humpty Doo and Bees Creek to get there. We got up close to crocodiles, kangaroos, wallabies, dingoes, kookaburras, magpie geese, frilled-neck lizards, and those stunningly colorful birds.
I also remember getting the same cab driver over and over again. He seemed to mysteriously appear every time I needed a ride somewhere. This was way before the days of cellphones. I have no idea how he just showed up wherever I was. Maybe he was assigned to watch me as the sole USAF female on the trip, like an unacknowledged body guard. Or maybe he was stalking me. It was weird and reassuring at the same time.
That trip to Australia was one I’ll certainly never forget. Even if I ever get back to that continent, chances are good that it won’t be to Darwin, which is not exactly a hot tourism spot. I am grateful for the chance to have gone there, even if I didn’t get to share it with Randy. And it was the perfect way to end the Pacific Adventure chapter of our lives.
Next up, we rotate back to the States and are stationed at McClellan AFB, California for the last chapter of my Air Force Career. I’ll tell you about that next Tuesday.
P.S. Today, Tuesday, April 22, 2025 I had 2 biopsies on my left breast. Both my previous cancer diagnoses have been in the right breast. Though I’m certain all they’re seeing on imaging is a bunch of leftover scar tissue and fat necrosis and other junk tissue from the left breast reduction surgery that went all wrong 2 years ago, I still ask for your prayers and healing thoughts. Having to go through all this doctoring is just a major pain in the butt.
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