04/14/2025
I watched this history-making formation from the first practices until the final performance. I got a chance to talk with Major Gary Sowa, pilot of the KC-46, about this flight and that interview is coming shortly.
This all Boeing flight is not just large aircraft together in flight, but the first heritage flight for tanker types. Doc, a B-29 Superfortress, represents the type of aircraft which would become the first USAF tanker. The KB-29M would use the hose and grapple initially, before other iterations lead to the flying boom that we know today, as the KB-29P.
The skies were beautiful with a mixed layer of clouds on the extremely hot April day, as the last pass in the overhead from behind and long show center into a bomb burst to the East.
I had to shoot this wide angle, after trying to capture this for days with my other lenses. It was a sight to behold and difficult to get all the large aircraft into one frame.
