The air campaign against ISIS is now well under way and observant people may have noticed an unusual silhouette high in the sky blue background of many photos of the conflict. The long slender outline with wings tucked back is the B-1B Lancer in action. Confirming these observations are videos released by the US Military in the last week, day and night videos that feature the awesome B-1B refuelling over Syria and Iraq.

Presented for your viewing pleasure are the latest videos of the B-1B refuelling as well as the results of these missions. Night time and day time vision of the big bird doing the dance with a tanker along with the aftermath of the missions. Sit back, relax and be glad that when you look up there are no B-1B’s.

There are 5 B-1B’s currently flying out of Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, originally moved to the Gulf to fly missions over Afghanistan the B-1B’s now have a new mission. Google Earth managed to capture an image of the 5 Bones parked on the apron of the airbase (see below)

On take-off the B-1B is typically fairly light on fuel, they do most of their refuelling in the air taking on up to 200,000 pounds of fuel, once fully refuelled the Bone has a range of over 7,000 miles. Flying over the Gulf the B-1B will be put to use as a high altitude bomber, for now there aren’t expected to be any low altitude missions until ground troops are present.

Reference: The Aviationist

Al Udeid Airbase, Qatar. Via Google Earth