Flying a Classic Hornet loaded with bombs over Iraq in 2016, Air Commodore Philip Gordon had a problem.
Beneath him was Daesh-controlled territory and a regime that burned alive the last fighter pilot they captured.
His fuel was running low and the German air-to-air refuelling tanker that had been allocated was struggling to transfer because of technical issues.
Air Commodore Gordon and his flight lead discussed landing in the Kurdish-Iraqi city of Erbil, but it wasn't a good place for the Australian Air Task Group commander to be stuck.
"I thought, 'CJOPs [chief joint operations] is not going to like this'. He was nervous about me going flying in the first place. If I had to divert into Iraq, it would really sour the friendship," Air Commodore Gordon said.
Just as he was about to head for Erbil, an Aussie voice came over the radio.
"We hear you're having some problems. We're five miles south of you, closing 2000 feet high."
It was the RAAF KC-30A air-to-air refuelling tanker.
The crew had been monitoring radio channels and took it upon themselves to fly over after hearing another tanker was having issues.
"They could've just stayed in their assigned orbit and flown in circles, but they were in the fight, supporting the missions and they basically saved our bacon," Air Commodore Gordon said.
Since the aircraft's first deployment on Operation Okra in 2014, KC-30 crews became known for monitoring radio channels and pre-emptively repositioning their aircraft.
'They could've just stayed in their assigned orbit and flown in circles, but they were in the fight, supporting the missions and they basically saved our bacon.'
During one early mission, a RAAF Super Hornet running low on fuel was preparing to strike Daesh targets near Sinjar to support friendly forces in danger of being overrun.
The pilot radioed RAAF's KC-30 to ask where they were on their tanker leg.
Unlike most tanker crews, Australia's KC-30 aviators listened to the joint terminal attack control frequency and had already moved 85 nautical miles closer to the action.
The Super Hornet was able to bomb its target, peel off and plug into the tanker.
Okra was the KC-30's first operational deployment and originally was only cleared to refuel Australia's Classic and Super Hornets.
Project office staff worked overtime to authorise refuelling of seven other fighter types from five nations.
It offloaded about 80,000 pounds of fuel to different aircraft every mission, which lasted up to nine hours.
Unlike most other coalition tankers, RAAF's KC-30 can refuel aircraft with a flying boom that inserts directly, or a probe-and-drogue system using hoses and baskets that fighters plug into.
RAAF tanker crews flew 11,332 hours across 1440 missions as part of Operation Okra before returning home in 2020.
They offloaded more 47,000 tonnes of fuel, with more than 350 aircrew and maintainers rotating though deployments with the KC-30.
