KC-135 Nozzle Removal

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM (July 10, 2016) Senior Airman Travis Krause, U.S. Air Force crew chief with the 507th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., prepares to remove the boom nozzle from a KC-135R Stratotanker in order to connect a drogue adapter and drogue. A drogue is used in air-to-air refueling. The probe and drogue method of refueling uses a trailing hose with a basket on the end. Pilots guide a probe on their aircraft into the basket to connect with the hose. Air Force helicopters and all Navy and Marine Corps aircraft refuel using the hose-and-drogue for air-to-air refueling. Krause and other Citizen Airmen are participating in the Rim of the Pacific exercise 2016. Twenty-six nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft, and 25,000 personnel will participate in RIMPAC from June 30 to Aug. 4, in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California. RIMPAC is the world's largest international maritime exercise, which provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain cooperative relationships critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2016 is the 25th exercise in the series that began in 1971. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Grady Epperly/Released)