B-2 Spirit Stealth Bombers Conducted Hot-Pit Refueling at Wake Island
Sep 24 2018
By David Cenciotti
Hot-pit refueling is required to operate out of locations with limited support and infrastructures.
On Sept. 14, two U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bombers forward deployed to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPH-H), Hawaii, conducted a routine training over the Pacific in the vicinity of Hawaii. The B-2s are deployed at JBPH-H from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, in support of the U.S. Strategic Command’s Bomber Task Force. It’s the first deployment of B-2s to JBPH-H, although the aircraft are regularly rotated to the Indo-Pacific region.
During the mission, one of the the B-2s flew to Wake Island, a coral limestone atoll in the mid-pacific, east of Guam, where it conducted hot-pit refueling, a technique in which the aircraft land and refuel, without shutting down the engines.
https://theaviationist.com/2018/09/24/b-2-spirit-stealth-bombers-conducted-hot-pit-refueling-at-wake-island/
