RAF A330MRTT Voyager tankers

walter

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The RAF ordered aircraft as Voyager KC2 and KC3, depending on the equipment.
Did I miss something, but was there a Voyager KC1?
 
Possibly because there was a Stinson Voyager in pressed service with the RAF during WW2.

OK, OK, daft I know, but you know how pedantic the designation boys are.

Chris
 
Someone will probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the C.1 designation might belong to one unmodified A330, G-VYGG, operated by AirTanker Services on a twice weekly service to the Falklands.
 
Air Tankers announcement of RAF core fleet completion:
ZZ338 arrival completes the RAF Voyager core fleet
by Jon Salmon | May 29, 2014
AirTanker has today [29 May 2014] taken delivery of ZZ338, the ninth aircraft delivered under the Future Strategic Tanker Transport (FSTA) RAF Voyager programme - completing the core fleet.

Flying into RAF Brize Norton this afternoon, the militarily converted Airbus A330-200 joins the seven strong Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) fleet now based at RAF Brize Norton.
This includes two two-point capable and five three-point capable tankers, in addition to the aircraft operated by AirTanker on the Civil Aircraft Register as part of the programme from the Oxfordshire airbase.

ZZ334, a three-point tanker, has completed the military conversion programme and is currently in Spain as part of the UK’s commitment to support the A400M flight test programme.

Phil Blundell, CEO, AirTanker said, “The arrival of the ninth aircraft means that the RAF now has access to the most capable tanking and air transport fleet in Europe

“We will continue to work in partnership with the RAF to refine this service, however, the delivery of the ninth Core fleet aircraft into RAF Brize Norton, nonetheless represents a sizeable achievement.”

A three-point tanker, ZZ338 comes with an upgraded fuselage refuelling unit (FRU) and will begin operations with the RAF once transferred to the Military Aircraft Register (MAR).

Alongside its tanking role, Voyager is able to perform air transport and aeromedical evacuation simultaneously, carrying up to 291 passengers or 40 stretchers, providing a step-change in capability.
The fleet has to date flown a total of 9,750 hours and carried over 172,000 passengers. In its tanker role, Voyager has offloaded over 4,000 tonnes of fuel to receiver aircraft in 230 sorties, including in support of Typhoon and UK air defence.
AirTanker secured clearance to begin air-to-air refuelling operations with Typhoon and Tornado in summer 2013, followed by the start of operations in support of the Afghanistan air-bridge in December.

The FSTA contract will see the delivery of 14 aircraft to the RAF, including the nine-strong core fleet and a five aircraft ‘surge capability’.
When not required by the RAF this surge fleet capability is available to AirTanker for release, with its agreement, for other purposes. This could include release to the civil market, less its military equipment or to partner nations in a military capacity with the MOD’s agreement.
The five aircraft that are to form the 'surge capability' are candidates for a Voyager C1 designation?
 
I don't believe there is any C.Mk. 1 designation allocated. The non-tanker aircraft are on the civil register as contractor-owned /contractor-operated assets and are not eligible for military serials or designations.

The tanker designations started at '2 for ease of reference in refueling operations.

I wish the chaps in charge of designations were pedantic...
 
Are you trying to say that the two-point tankers are the KC.2 and the three-point tankers are KC.3?

Madness! Madness! That is far too sensible and I refuse to believe the MoD would condone such transparency.

Chris

PS whoever thought that up should get an OBE. Mind you they probably had one already.
 
I did some more digging and as far as I can determine the non-tankers are not referenced any differently to other chartered civil aircraft e.g. Titan or Atlas 767s, so no designation was issued.

Air Tanker could swap them for Il-96s and the MoD would be none the wiser so long as the pax & cargo capacity didn't change...

On that theme, you might be interested in Titan's load-planning spreadsheet for their 767 G-POWD ( link on the right-hand side here ). You can see what audience they have in mind:

Code:
...
B	Baggage
C	Cargo
M	Mail
CMB	Comb (B/C/M)
DIP	Diplomatic Mail
W	Weapons
BA	Body Armour
FAK	Flyaway Kit
...
 
Gentlemen :) :)
Thank you for the very detailed replies. For the time being I will asume that, at least officially, the Voyager C1 designation was not issued.
As a side note, I understand that the first contract for lease of one of the "surge fleet" aircraft was signed by Thomas Cook a couple of days ago.
Best, Walter
 
Here's an image of the Voyager that flew past at this year's Cosford Air Show...

cheers,
Robin.
 

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EDIT: Drats, just realised article is paywalled. :(
 
Yesterday wandered over to the ‚Hall and nice to see Voyager forward deployed from Brize for supporting QRA. It does happen occasionally and as luck had it ....call to scramble around lunchtime from Lossiemouthnbased Typhoons intercepting Russians over the North Sea, so here are my photos ..

cheers

4370C91D-C953-46DD-96E5-60C0D95D489F.jpeg 0C19936A-D5B5-4644-A298-F588E211B993.jpeg 7E1EF012-E2AC-434D-A650-A332237BC5E1.jpeg 57166335-A1A7-4AC8-A371-C993BCDCEE2D.jpeg 007F94CA-E61F-4CAE-AAFB-3F7FFD0C9D47.jpeg C629CDBD-4CF6-4F28-AB7D-1DCD2ECB81F0.jpeg 2065BEB0-93D7-4BBB-BB89-AFC6E2EF67DD.jpeg A5794B02-4F56-4993-B83B-C078CE368B8B.jpeg 08D7DCB1-276F-460B-86C6-F1B8C800C4EB.jpeg
 
Morning, been going over Voyager development and apparently the KC.1 designation was reserved for the boom-equipped KC-45A pitched at the USAF (I don't think we'll pursue this...)

Chris
 
Given the number of aircraft in service and entering service with the RAF, which are fitted with flying boom receptacles (C17, P8, Wedgetail and Airseeker/Rivet Joint - although on images I've found of these do not show a receptacle), I am surprises that a version of Voyager with flying boom receptacle hasn't been procured.

Plus it only seems good manners to be able to refuel USAF aircraft in our airspace.
 
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I think these US types retain the boom receptacle. Poseidons do (see attached) and the Sentries do, hence the very offset probe. The C-17s were procured under an agreement that initially didn't cover IFR and the Rivet Joints are probably refuelled on a boom (shhhhhh).

Could the Air Staff be waiting to see how Singapore gets on with the automatic air refuelling system on their A330 MRTTs?

Oddly enough, today I was wondering how the accounting for inter-air force fuel costs worked.

Chris

 
Noticed three all white Voyagers at Brize on Monday. Saw them briefly from the top deck of a bus. No idea why they were all white.
 
...and adopting the boom system could allow the UK to buy a tranche of cheaper F-35As rather than all 138 F-35Bs. Or perhaps that sensible decision has been made as I'm well out of the loop on the F-35.

UK75 - you must've seen some white elephants.

I think I'm about to go on a pre-breakfast Voyager rant, so will stop there.

Chris
 
Of course the fly in the ointment is that the RAF doesn’t own the Voyagers, the Airtanker consortium does. No doubt any change to the fit the customer requests will attract a hefty premium to the lease cost.
 
And just to really make my day, Boris One went over the house.

Chris
 
Given the number of aircraft in service and entering service with the RAF, which are fitted with flying boom receptacles (C17, P8, Wedgetail and Airseeker/Rivet Joint - although on images I've found of these do not show a receptacle), I am surprises that a version of Voyager with flying boom receptacle hasn't been procured.

Plus it only seems good manners to be able to refuel USAF aircraft in our airspace.

If my memory serve me right the KC-135's out of Mildenhall are also equipped with drogue units, so there is a precedent, what about the RAAF tankers etc?
 

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There were also the rather strange hermaphrodite used by the French AF, which was a KC135 with a flying boom with a drogue deploying from it.
 
Saying that, there should be some handy bargains around in the second hand aircraft market if the MOD wanted to do a rerun of the purchase of the Tristars post Falklands.
 
Saying that, there should be some handy bargains around in the second hand aircraft market if the MOD wanted to do a rerun of the purchase of the Tristars post Falklands.
Why 2nd hand? Just buy some Max. Fly them with drogues and convert the MTT with booms.
 
EwenS does raise an important point, these are not really RAF assets in the traditional sense. It's not clear what scope the MOD has for enforcing kit change without bumping up the lease costs, remember the fuss there was about adding the required self-defensive kit for operations over Afghanistan because it wasn't specified in the contract (as FSTA had pre-dated the Afghan operations).

I don't think buying more airframes is likely, the MOD is locked into the contract and isn't even getting full use of the 'surge' fleet so its unlikely the Treasury would agree and the MOD might not want to open up contractual cans of worms in buying a second set of tankers.
In any case in 15 years time the contract will be up for grabs again so who knows what shiny tankers we might get then?
 
Another Aerospace Deal of the Century!

I must admit I struggled to retain objectivity when I discussed the Voyagers in On Atlas' Shoulders and merely quoted the Chair of the PAC.

The Voyager, and its PFI financing in particular, came in for severe criticism when it emerged that the aircraft would not be fitted with the defensive countermeasures that would be required if the type were to go in harm’s way, unlike the version bought for the Royal Australian Air Force. Further criticism, of its finances and the PFI deal, came about when it was revealed by the UK’s Public Accounts Committee that the MoD had no idea if the aircraft represented good value for money!

Committee Chair, Margaret Hodge MP, stated that ‘Throughout the project the MoD has lacked the robust financial and performance data needed to make sensible decisions.’


I could have gone full-on Rowley Birkin and got stuck into the lack of booms, flying Geordies to Cancun, lack of countermeasures, one Voyager costing the same as a fleet of converted 767s, go all Private Eye on PFI contracts etc etc but as Hood says, it was all contracted pre-Afghanistan, nobody has a crystal ball and the past is another country (with a very strange fauna).

There's a book in Voyager and Atlas (another programme for which I just use quotes) but nobody would buy it.

I'd be interested in Alertken's thoughts on Voyager and Atlas...

I'll get me coat.

Chris
 
There were also the rather strange hermaphrodite used by the French AF, which was a KC135 with a flying boom with a drogue deploying from it.

USAF KC-135s have flown like that quite a bit since the 1990s in support of USN/USMC operations. Some have also been fitted with hose-reel pods, but the clip-on drogue adapter is still in use, I think. It's much hated because it's really short and doesn't have as much slack as the normal hose reels -- easy to plug, but hard to stay connected.
 
During my time at YYC (Calgary International), I got to see every one of the Voyagers that the RAF uses. Most of them had lots of lumps & bumps on them, like this below. Any idea what they do ?
 

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Another Aerospace Deal of the Century!

I must admit I struggled to retain objectivity when I discussed the Voyagers in On Atlas' Shoulders and merely quoted the Chair of the PAC.

The Voyager, and its PFI financing in particular, came in for severe criticism when it emerged that the aircraft would not be fitted with the defensive countermeasures that would be required if the type were to go in harm’s way, unlike the version bought for the Royal Australian Air Force. Further criticism, of its finances and the PFI deal, came about when it was revealed by the UK’s Public Accounts Committee that the MoD had no idea if the aircraft represented good value for money!

Committee Chair, Margaret Hodge MP, stated that ‘Throughout the project the MoD has lacked the robust financial and performance data needed to make sensible decisions.’


I could have gone full-on Rowley Birkin and got stuck into the lack of booms, flying Geordies to Cancun, lack of countermeasures, one Voyager costing the same as a fleet of converted 767s, go all Private Eye on PFI contracts etc etc but as Hood says, it was all contracted pre-Afghanistan, nobody has a crystal ball and the past is another country (with a very strange fauna).

There's a book in Voyager and Atlas (another programme for which I just use quotes) but nobody would buy it.

I'd be interested in Alertken's thoughts on Voyager and Atlas...

I'll get me coat.

Chris)

Don't get me started on PFI, I do wonder if the F stands for fraud (Hire a school caretaker cost - around £80 a day, PFI comes in and changes 4 light bulbs takes about an hour cost £100+ GENIUS). What the costs are for the MMRTT is I dread to think.
 
During my time at YYC (Calgary International), I got to see every one of the Voyagers that the RAF uses. Most of them had lots of lumps & bumps on them, like this below. Any idea what they do ?

IIRC the were fitted with a electronics suite before they were deployed over Afghanistan, I don't know if that applied to all aircraft.
 
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