On Board with the 128th Air Refueling Wing

Some massive planes are taking up residence Milwaukee's 128th Air Refueling Wing, and Friday CBS 58 got a chance to fly inside one and talk to crews about what they do in the air.

At 26,000 feet the plane rendezvous with another plane. One plane is the tanker and the other is the receiver. Each plane has three crew members, the pilot, co-pilot and a boom operator.

The boom operator lays flat, puts their chin on a chin rest and directs the boom while laying down.

Every week the crew does this type of flight two times a day.

Crew members say they want the public to have a better understanding of what they do on a daily basis, “we do this on deployments, so we take our training here and we apply it to real life. We are deployed a lot. So it kind of lets you guys know and everyone know, we do this for practice, but we do this for real and we need this practice and we need this training,” said Master Sargent Amanda Look.

At the Air Refueling Wing today’s event is the unofficial kick off to Armed Forces Week.

Next week there will be all sorts of events around Milwaukee which has the largest armed forces week celebration in the country.

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