Airliners.net

Sunday, February 5th 2017

"Zombe69" has been providing the fuel to the 24/7 combat air patrol above South Florida which is in place to protect the POTUS while he vacations at his Palm Beach mansion. After a few misses , I was able to get the right angle to capture an F-16 from the CAP being dragged by "Zombie69" (i.e. getting fueled at 22,000 feet). I suppose this will become a regular sight above the skies of South Florida now that #45 is Trump with his mansion here. The airborne fuel station has been open for business since his arrival and will be up till he leaves tomorrow. The holding pattern is seen in the screen grab thanks to https://www.adsbexchange.com.

My gallery of pictures are here:
http://www.atapattu.net/Special-Project ... /n-jhmrbq/

Very interesting...where are the F-16s and the KC-46s based? Are 24/7 CAPs also done over Washington D.C.?

This is costing the American taxpayers exactly how much?

From what I've been told by someone that is involved with such things (or was over the last decade or so), this sort of thing happens a lot. As for the extra "cost" these hours are mostly in replacement for training hours that the crews would be flying anyway. As for the D.C. area, while there is almost always something in the air that can be called upon, the D.C. region is unique in that there are... other... assets that are also available, which makes some of this redundant.

LightningZ71 wrote:

From what I've been told by someone that is involved with such things (or was over the last decade or so), this sort of thing happens a lot. As for the extra "cost" these hours are mostly in replacement for training hours that the crews would be flying anyway. As for the D.C. area, while there is almost always something in the air that can be called upon, the D.C. region is unique in that there are... other... assets that are also available, which makes some of this redundant.

Building upon that, there is always alert aircraft on stand-by within the DC area...lots of redunancy

Seabear wrote:

This is costing the American taxpayers exactly how much?

Nothing more than what has already been budgeted. These hours are being logged against pilot’s quarterly training requirements. Back in the day, the AF flew patients between medical centers all the time in C-9s. The reason was that the Nightingale pilots needed flying hours and why not do something useful by transporting patients instead of just doing multiple touch and goes in the pattern.

dfwjim1 wrote:

Very interesting...where are the F-16s and the KC-46s based?

That's a KC-10, most likely out of McGuire.
There are no KC-46s owned or operated by the USAF yet.

Politics need to be kept out of this discussion or the thread will be locked. Politics belong in Non Av.

✈️ atcsundevil

Cool pictures eksath, thanks for sharing and good eyes!

Those are great photos. Thanks for sharing.

Seabear wrote:

This is costing the American taxpayers exactly how much?

Same approximate amount per hour as it cost other recent presidents to fly anywhere.

Some international trips have had total costs ascribed to them by the GAO in the tens of millions of dollar range.

"NICE72" is on station this morning (Saturday, 2/11) since #45 arrived at PBI yesterday evening.

http://www.atapattu.net/Special-Project ... -9KGpdb2/A

First public news of a response by the POTUS CAP above Florida for his vacations (# 3 in progress this weekend)

http://abcnews.go.com/US/military-plane ... d=45575018

Did George W. Bush also get 24/7 air cover when he spent his vacancies at his Texas ranch?

David

flyingturtle wrote:

Did George W. Bush also get 24/7 air cover when he spent his vacancies at his Texas ranch?

David

Did Barack H. Obama also get 24/7 air cover when he spent his vacations playing golf around the country?
Did Michele Obama also get 24/7 air cover during her vacations abroad?