This KC-97G Stratofreighter ended its service days in the Californian Air Guard. Most of these aircraft “extended” their careers in units of this type, which were not as demanding as the front-line ones.
This time it is an RF-4C Phantom II, the one that fills its tanks from the “flying gas station”. These operations allows combat aircrafts to expand their combat radius very considerably.
When they entered service, the resupply of the B-47 Stratojet bombers was their only mission, but with the arrival of the new B-52Stratofortress bomber, they were relegated to less demanding units.
The biggest weakness of the KC-97G Stratofreighter was that it was quite slow at low altitude, which made it very difficult to resupply modern jets. Two turboprops were installed, one on each wing, to compensate this problem, which gave rise to KC-97L variant.
