Lockheed's tanker would have been a variation on Airbus's A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport. Airbus now plans to respond to the Air Force's tanker request.
lieutenant general dave nahall leads the alaska command and the alaska norad region. any threats coming from russia, china, that part of the world into america they re first going to cross into alaska airspace. this is kind of on the front lines for america and canada. all right, here we go. start three. reporter: norad draws on u.s. and canadian military assets for its air defense missions. from fighter units to alaska national guard tanker missions to a guard unit that tracks and i.d.s aircraft. the fighters that are cally dohave alert lot of endurance. d the distances in alaska are vast. and so they require the support of tanker aircraft like this kc-135 we re flying aboard now. i take in the view from a rear window as chief master sergeant wes hudnall directs funto a pair o f-16s. lete. reporter: abo dramatic landscape can the fighters on their own it to where they need to go?
in defense of the former president. we have an overclassification problem. and we do have an overclassification problem. these are not documents that are overclassified. these are things like nuclear secrets. i ll tell you, anderson, just for two years, i flew the kc-135, the air refuel we are a nuclear mission. we would go into practice our nuclear mission. we had to have top secret clearance to do that. we weren t allowed to take notes. we weren t even allowed to know where our supposed target was. and these documents, what you re seeing, particularly the nuclear ones and the ones that stand out to me, appears to be all of those secrets out there in the bathroom for somebody to go root through and find out. you know, i just look at this, and the context that david did and the context that andy mccabe did, as a former assistance deputy director of national intelligence, you work in a world of these documents. but it meant you had to get a top secret clearance, you had to
answer, but i sure would like to hear beijing justify what they re doing. that said, these are intercepts. now, look, air and maritime intercepts happen all the time. it s done professionally and done inside the international law and it s done in accordance with the rules of the road. these two you saw recently they have happened with more frequency than we would like, not all of them are unsafe and unprofessional, but these two were. you saw in the air intercept they forced our aircraft and our c-135 to basically go through the jet wash. you saw the bump in the cockpit, that shows you how close that chinese fighter was to our jet. and in the maritime intercept, 150, 140 yards, speaking as an old sailer myself, i will tell you that s pretty close when you re in open waters like that. you can see the head of steam
these two that you saw recently, and there s they have happened with more frequency than we like, not all are unsafe and unprofessional but these two were. the air intercept, forced c-135 to basically good through the jet wash, that you saw the bump in the cockpit, that shows you how close the chinese fighter was to our jet. and in the maritime intercept in the taiwan straits, 140, 150 yards. speaking as an old sailor myself, that s close when you are in open waters like that and you can see the head of steam that chinese vessel had on as it crossed the bow of one of our destroyers. no call for that. unsafe and unprofessional. as to why they are doing it, again, i think that s a great question to ask them. what i would tell you from our perspective is we are flying, we are sailing, we are operating in international air space and