Talk:709th Air Refueling Squadron

Dubious

What evidence is there that this unit existed? None is cited.

A patch site shows what purports to be a patch for the unit. Although it has a scroll with an abbreviated form of the unit name, it is not the emblem of the unit because it is on a shield, not a disc as USAF requires for squadrons.

A search of [1] does not come up with any relevant unit information.

If the squadron was active usual USAF practice for the number 709 to be assigned would be to reactivate and redesignate the WW II 709th Bombardment Squadron. However, that unit is active as the 709th Airlift Squadron.

In the unlikely case that the unit existed at March AFB, it would Have been part of the 722d Air Refueling Wing. The 722d was a placeholder unit, without much notability, and I believe, flew KC-10s, not KC-1135s. --Lineagegeek (talk) 11:26, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

It's listed in an AMC publication titled "Poised for the New Millennium: The Global Reach of the Air Mobility Command ", p. 51. It existed from 1 Sep 94 to 30 Sep 95, so I'd say it's not really notable. That work was published by the Office of History of AMC in April 2001. Intothatdarkness 14:06, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Appears to have been a placeholder for remaining active duty KC-10s at March when the 9th Air Refueling Squadron moved to Travis. There is a similar situation with the 744th Air Refueling Squadron, but even with a lack of notability, I can turn that page into a redirect to 53d Electronic Warfare Group#Components. There's no page for the 722d Air Refueling Wing. Although I'm away from my resources, I might be able to stub it and do a similar redirect to replace this article. --Lineagegeek (talk) 17:06, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. The AMC Special Orders that activated and inactivated the unit were GAXP-24 (10 June 94) and GAXP-13 (11 May 95) if you were curious. Agree that it's not really a notable unit, but it did at least exist on paper. Should the 712th ARS crop up, it looks to fall into the same category (it was at Robins AFB and existed from April 94 to July 96). Intothatdarkness 17:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Since it existed, I've removed the dubious tag. --Lineagegeek (talk) 21:37, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Patch

The patch that has recently been linked appears to be the emblem of the 722d Air Refueling Wing with the squadron number on the scroll. It does not meet the standards for a squadron emblem at the time the unit was active --Lineagegeek (talk) 21:37, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

This unit never existed.

I think this has been confused with 709th airlift squadron. No unit of this name with refuelling duties is available in USAF documents Aero101977 (talk) 20:31, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to Intothatdarkness's reply above, I found this: [2] from amc.af.mil, on page number 51 of which there is one reference to 709th Air Refueling Squadron. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • C • L)} 21:13, 17 April 2022 (UTC)