There's one of four 1950's era jets (one of them an A-4 I think) hanging up in the NASWF academic building. I'll try to get a shot tomorrow.
The Army experimented first with notion of refueling in flight
The first successful aerial refueling took place on June 27, 1923, when a DH-4B carrying Lts. Virgil Hine and Frank W. Seifert passed gasoline through a hose to another DH-4B flying beneath it carrying Lts. Lowell H. Smith and John P. Richter.
The next day another refueling flight was made in an attempt to break the world record set by Macready and Kelly in the T-2 on Oct. 5, 1922. Unfortunately, a gasoline valve in the receiver airplane became plugged, and Smith had to make a forced landing in some mud flats near North Island after almost a full day in the air. The airplane flipped onto its back on landing, and its propeller was cracked.
Two months later on Aug. 27-28, Smith and Richter made an endurance flight which lasted 37 hours, 15 minutes, with 16 refueling contacts. During this flight, they set 16 new world records for distance, speed and duration. On Oct. 25, 1923, Smith and Richter flew nonstop from the Canadian to the Mexican border, a distance of 1,250 miles, by being refueled three times while in the air. The theory of extending the range of an airplane by mid-air refueling became a demonstrated fact. The rest is history taking us to routine aerial refueling daily.
Although not a routine practrice in WWII, immense distances from captured island bases to Japan resulted in Navy, RAF and Army Air Force experiments to extend ranges of bombers. The need bacame OBE as Marines captured Iwo Jima and Okinawa and long range B-29 operations commenced.
The Cold War and intercontinental bombing missions resulted in aerial refueling being a standard operational practice for tactical aircraft as well as the strategic bombing fleet. The Air Force settled on the boom method of transfer transitioning from probe and drogue method first introduced and in use by US Navy and other air forces in the world.
The F-105 was the TAC transition aircraft having the ability to use a Navy-style probe or the SAC receptacle to refuel.
By the advent of hostilities on Vietnam, it was a mainstream practice and a necessity for fighter bombers heading to North Vietnam and helicopters engaged in RESCAP missions allowing to reach deep inside North Vietnam to rescue downed pilots.
Even the Army experimented with refueling during Vietnam
Air Force graciously providing fuel to Navy customers during Desert Storm
HJ photo