Why Aerial Refuelling Is Most Challenging Manoeuvre For A Pilot | Richard Hammond's Big 

3:53 “The planes are now so close to each other, that our super galax-*WHIRRRRRRRRRRRR*

If you listen carefully, you'll hear a documentary behind all that music.

Some says he is deaf and some say he chew his ears off because he came second in a race...all we know is that he is called the sound editor.

must've hired the deaf sound engineer from the old top gear days

I've done hundreds of air refuelings, both as tanker and receiver, and I can honestly say that air refueling requires the most concentration of anything I've ever done. It's also the most fun and rewarding part of flying!

Music is too loud in the video, I can barely hear what he is saying

Excellent documentary but background music is unbearable

Huge props to the pilot for pulling this off so well.

Out of everything Hammond has ever done, on Top Gear or any of his other projects, I can honestly say this one I'm truly jealous of

Back in the late 1970's, I was aircrew on EC-130's and we became one of the first US Air Force C-130 squadrons get have air-to-air refueling capabilities. Part of my duties was to prepare the back of the aircraft for refueling and to be a safety observer. The first time I got to sit in the cockpit and watch - my reaction was pretty much the same as yours. It never got old. Excellent video - brought back some great memories. Thank you.

Music is too loud, and voice is too low.

Gotta love them mixing up the tankers in the edit...see a shot of a kc10, then a kc135 and back to a kc10, then again back to a kc135

Hammond can talk about anything and make it sound exciting, another great presenter from England

..and the Emmy for Sound Mixing goes to... not this person

1:13 Pilot: let me know if you see anything Richard: *laughs* Pilot: No seriously let me know

Amazing how Hammond balances the motoring world and engineering and science documentaries ⚡

Absolute respect to the pilot for just walking on up and getting it done. Amazing job.

5:29 Holy cow!! Look how massive that crater was!

Its astounding to realise. That these people do it every day, as a matter of course. Hats off to them .

Excellent choice editing so much excessively loud music and sound effects. I could totally hear Hammonds narration.

Helen keller would've been better at audio editing than whomever did this.

I worked on these bad boys for four years! As well as the KC-10A!! What a massive plane the C-5 is!! I definitely miss this part of my career!!

A/R was the most challenging and fun flying I've ever done. We did a few days at the Boeing Kent Space Center in Seattle, WA. where Boeing had a simulator. After a few days in the simulator you go for your first A/R flight. The first hour in the sim is hopeless. After an hour it clicks. I once took on 100K lbs. from a KC-10 over the Mediterranean. It took a bit over 20 minutes. We started in a relatively flat pitch attitude with the throttles about halfway up, we finished 2 1/2 degrees nose up with the power 3/4 up. That was my biggest offload but it was smooth and I got it with one plug.

Just amazing - incredible pilot skill - Thanks Richard.

One of the coolest and most terrifying things is seeing a telephone pole coming at you ready to transfer thousands of lbs of fuel while you both are flying. Awesome to see the coordination amongst the flight deck as well

Your audio mixing is terrible, you guys need any help over there?

Great to see you again Richard.

Awesome stuff. Kudos to the pilots and crew and thank you for your service! Semper Fi !!!!! My son is a marine

Absolute respect for these folks,true professionals!

I’ve watched these takeoff and land hundreds of times during my time in the Air Force but these planes never got old to see. It’s still mind boggling these fly.

Richard's face was priceless when the pilot was explaining the go no go points!

My uncle piloted the KC-135 tankers for many years in the USAF 🇺🇸

Another amazing video, hammond defo makes it better!

Richard was pretty excited there! Great crew coordination. Fun to see. Thanks!

That looked to be out of Dover AFB. The C-5 Galaxy is a big beast to behold. They lugged our OH-6s an AH-1s around for us back in the 80s. They were a great group to work with.

Yes the fuel capacity has a finite capacity but the refueling in air serves two purposes. Yes extends range but aerial refueling also allows the receiver air to carry more cargo and personnel the same distance. Maximum Take Off Weight is also a finite number and the aircraft doesn’t care whether it is cargo, Perone life, or fuel. The tanker aircraft is from the 171st Aerial Refueling Wing from Pittsburgh, PA I spent five years in PIT...not at 171st but we saw them all the time!

Simply amazing and breathtaking

Excellent job, CPT Alex Jensen! Way to go, sister! I hope she's a Major now. That was absolutely incredible!

One word: Amazing.

Just to be a dissenter I think the music is too loud.

Love from Tanzania, salute.

Great skill great speed great hands.

amazing work

Amazing video! As a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, watching the C-5 Galaxy and the KC-10 always held my attention. I was a firefighter. To see them dock for a refueling op...stunning! Two of my favorite aircraft in the same video made my day.

Excellent documentary

When he said “this is not a game they are doing this for real” made me think of how crazy that would of actually been to witness. I could imagine it would literally feel as if you were in a video game.

regardless of the event, teamwork is always a fantastic feat.

Excellent documentary 👏👍

dad did it with KDC-10 In dutch military, takes so much skill but he enjoyed it

Absolutely amazing 👏 :)

Beautiful aircraft.

woow I still can not belive what C-5 Galaxy can do. Respect 4 all pilots all over the world! Motorcycle destroyed my wish to be a pilot. Best Regards. 'Sky don't have a limit' ✌️

This is amazing.

Much respect

RESPECT! HIGH CLASS JOB!! WELL DONE! STAR TALENTS!!!!!*

You are my mentor richard Hammond

7:18 because he's been working with Clarkson and May

Great flying

The MTSU Aerospace patch on the instructor's headset is the best part of this video!

Beyond of thought.👍👍👍

Is the sound editing a homage to the sound editor of old Top Gear clips on RU-vid?..

amazing

Everyone is talking about the background music but no one noticed that in 3:24 the tanker was a tri jet (has three engines), whereas in 3:35 and the rest of the video it has 4.

GREAT VID.

The best in the business 💪💪👍👍

That is incredible to watch so close like that. Is there a full documentary of this?

Great job...

"All we know is... it's the Top Gear sound editor!" Nice to see them keeping the tradition going.

"Banking to the left" he says, vid shows banking to the right lol.

❤️ beautiful ❤️ video ❤️

This is something special! How are they able to get the shots of both planes from outside?

In-air refueling is easily the most important mission in the USAF. No one else has the same large-scale capability that we do. Things have come quite a ways since the Wright brothers' balsa wood flyer

If you ever get a chance to do this from the Navy side of things, you'd be in the back seat of a Super Hornet (or Growler, a variant of the Super Hornet), tanking behind another Super Hornet equipped with a "hose-and-drogue" system. Basically, the hose is deployed from the tanker and at the end there's a drogue (kind of like a low-resistance parachute - it looks like a badminton shuttlecock) and the pilot in the receiving aircraft - which has its own probe - is the one that has to do all the maneuvering. The pilot in the receiving aircraft maneuvers to place the tip ("Just the tip, okay?") of the probe into the center of the drogue (AKA, the basket). The tanker pilot is essentially just flying straight and level unless a turn is needed during refueling. We used to do this routinely at night (and often during the day) when I was in the Navy. (I flew in S-3A Vikings as an enlisted crew member.) At the time, the Navy operated two types of carrier-based tankers - A-7 Corsairs and KA-6 Intruders. One or the other was airborne any time there were a significant number of aircraft that had to trap back aboard the ship at night (I can't remember if there was one airborne for each daylight recovery). However, neither the A-7 or KA-6 could land with a heavy load of fuel, so to avoid the need for the tanker to dump fuel to get below the maximum trap weight one of the returning Vikings would be the "sponge," staying in the air until it was one of the last aircraft back on the deck. We tanked behind an Air Force KC-10 one time, similar to what you saw in the video except that a hose-and-drogue accessory package was added to the tanker before it took off. From what I remember, the hose came out of the tanker's regular refueling probe. And as with Navy tanking, the KC-10 just had to fly straight and level.

Hey, I was in a simulator of one of these a while back. Air Force One no longer had any paint on the nose.

This is a practiced skill which you study in class and then to a sim. Just like other skills you master like cross wind landings the more you do it the more automatic it becomes and you get a feel for it. It is too hard to describe but the C5 is different than other aircraft that refuel because of the T tail. The buffeting is normal in a large aircraft but the pitching changes are not that significant in other aircraft.

Kudos 👍

I was stressed just watching this. Hats off to our men and women in the service.

I have some fotos of my brother in air refueling when he piloted the C-5. You're right, it is quite a maneuver⚠️

Very interesting.

Its amazing how small the kc 135 looks above that c5

How terrifying but exciting!

Salute

My brother was AC on a C-5 and gave me some really righteous photos of his plane being refueled. He had also qualified for Select Lead Crew..

Skilled pilots

She's a joy to fly on

At 2:09 the engine sound is that distinctive whine of the older TF39 engines, not the way the current CF6 engines sound which this aircraft is equipped with.

6:24 Madam Captain's nails on fleek.

Two Thumbs Up !!

Cool nice music video

Reminds Me Of There Goes an Airplane and Little Hardhats "Cleared For Takeoff"

I love her

It’s apparent that at 2:08, 2:24 and other moments, older stock footage of C5A/B Galaxy aircraft is used instead of the C5M featured in the documentary.

Wild that someone listened to this and thought 'yep sounds mixed nicely, boys' and uploaded.

Neat stuff

Nice sound mixing

Amazing how the KC-10 turns into a KC-135. I have seen this in person from both ends..

Ahhh the Top Gear Sound Engineer moved companies with Hammond.

The COOLEST thing EVERRR! 🇺🇸 🇺🇸

Most Challenging for sure. Refueling my jet mid air is tougher than downing few migs. Many an hour have been lost stuck in that level in flight games.

Well done! USA 🇺🇸