Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Global Shield: MITO takeoffs

Global Shield exercises were conducted by the Air Force in the early 1980s. One of the objectives was to practice getting as many bombers and refueling tankers in the air as quickly as possible. MITO is an acronym for Minimum Interval Take Off. Intervals were usually 15 to 30 seconds.

I had the honor to be included on a Global Shield exercise in 1982. I sat in the engineers seat in the cockpit of the 5th aircraft in our cell, a KC-135 tanker, which accompanied the B-52s to a refueling point near the artic circle. The flight engineer was leaning between the two pilots to help watch; after all, there were four aircraft in front of us. This video is similar to what I experienced (this one looks like Wurtsmith AFB, Mich; I was at Ellsworth AFB, SD.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Griffiss in NY according to the person who posted the video.