While your blogmeister does not work at the Buffalo airport itself,
his place of employment is quite literally *at* the airport, just the
other side of the fence. Such proximity during the daily grind affords
him many an opportunity to see, hear, feel, and sometimes even smell
things with wings, often by simply looking out the door that's just a
few feet from where he spends 8 to 10 hours each weekday.
The
usual sights consist of rather mundane flying machines, made a bit less
boring by the bright colors with which they're adorned, accented by the
names 'Southwest', or 'American', etc. Every now and again, however,
something a tad more interesting shows up at 'ole KBUF, including one
that appeared many weeks back... a certain bird that your blogmeister
identifies as a VC-25A, but which the masses know more colloquially as
'Air Force One'.
Anyhoo, the subject of today's installment
of BuffaloWingz ain't 'Air Force One' (look for that soonly-like, in a
future installment), but could conceivably be referred to as such if the
right circumstances were to come about at some point. (Doubtful, but
hey, we can dream, can't we?) And in any case, while the photos below
ain't the goodest your blogmeister has produced, they show a bird that
he finds infinitely more interesting and freakin' groovy than the flying
White House.
As he was leaving work the other day, your
blogmeister was informed by Jim, the building custodian, that there was a
'tanker' just down the road, at the post office. Now, most folks would
probably hear that and say to themselves,
"Wut-da-hell's so exciting 'bout a gas truck and why's it at the post
office?" But, being the nut for things with wings that he is, and
knowing that said custodian was once in the USAF, your blogmeister also
knows what the word 'tanker' means when passing between 'ole Jim's lips,
and so decided to take a slight detour on his way home from work to take a looksee at the ramp down at the USPS Buffalo Air Mail Facility. The
following photos resulted from said detour. Again, they ain't the
most-bestest ever taken by yours truly, but... what the hey.
Oh,
and at this point, I must point out that Jim was not only in the USAF,
but he once served with the very outfit that operates the tanker in the
photos... albeit back when said outfit was in the moving business, and
not aerial bartending to gas-guzzling jets. (Don't tell Jim I told you
that, though... he's a humble sort and doesn't like the publicity.)
What's
that you ask? Oh, geez, how'da-hell could I almost forget? The 'tanker'
is a KC-135R flown by the 328th Air Refueling Squadron of the 914th Air
Refueling Wing, USAFRC, out of Niagara Falls ARS, NY.
Enjoy, and don't forget to tip your boomer...
Fade to Black...
