Contact

That's me in the front seat of the F-15E taking gas from a tanker.  Contact is the brevity word used between the receiver and the refueler or tanker when the boom of the tanker is plugged into the recieving aircraft.  You will notice the boom is color coded with red signifying the inner and outer limits, with green being the sweet spot.  Inside the green area is a yellow ball that we call the "green apple".  That is where you want to be and stay. The boom gives the forward and back position.  There is also the side to side and up and down positions to think about.  When loaded for combat and at higher altitudes sometimes one engine must be in afterburner, using the other one throttle to modulate power.  The technique is to put the left engine in after burner due to the resulting yaw to the right, which was away from the boom of the tanker.  I could go on...  

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