Screaming Eagles fly with new birds Published July 13, 2012 By By Tech. Sgt. Angela Brees 190th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs JOINT BASE PEARL HARBER-HICKAM, Hawaii -- The "Screaming Eagles" of the 96th Air Refueling Squadron are really good at refueling C-17 Globemaster III's and F-22 Raptors - it's what they do everyday. Based at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, the 96th performs most refueling missions with aircraft from the 15th Wing and 154th Wing of the Hawaii Air National Guard. "Day-in, day-out, we refuel F-22s and C-17s, with some rare random refueling of other airframes," said Lt. Col. J. Wes Thompson, 96th ARS operations officer. However, that has changed with start of the Rim of the Pacific exercise being conducted here. Although it is still early in the exercise, the 96th has already refueled A-10 Thunderbolt II's and Canadian F-18 Hornets - the latter requiring the use of a boom drogue adapter. As a new squadron, having only been commissioned late last year and serving as an associate unit to the HIANG 203rd ARS, opportunities to deploy are limited for 96th ARS members. The squadron does not have its own maintenance personnel to date; it relies on the 203rd for maintenance support, which owns the aircraft as well. It expects to receive its first assigned maintainers late summer 2012. RIMPAC is helping to prepare Airman for the operational tempo of their next duty station, Thompson said. "Without a deployed mission, we are limited on how many airframes we see. RIMPAC is providing us with an opportunity to see new airframes and experience longer missions that are more typical of a deployed environment," he said.