What that vid captured was a refueling operation and I can see by the silhouette that it is indeed an AWACS aircraft being refueled. After the refueling boom between the tanker and the AWACS is decoupled, the AWACS cuts its throttles back to idle and immediately begins to decelerate, descend, fall behind the tanker and change course. This maneuver is performed in order to provide adequate separation to avoid the wake turbulence/wing tip vortices from the tanker. Once the AWACS is at the proper separation and heading ... Read even more
