Air-to-Air Refuelling Aircraft

CJGibson

CJGibson

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This has just gone on sale. No projects, but was interesting to work on all the same.

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Air-to-Air Refuelling Aircraft

Air-to-Air Refuelling Aircraft Modern Military Aircraft Series: Volume 3 Modern strategists talk about force multipliers , and for air operations, air-to-air refuelling is without doubt the greatest force multiplier of all. In-flight refuelling has allowed not only the longest bombing missions...
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Chris
 
Real world aircraft, nothing to sneeze at. Want.
 
What is the main differences from that one ?.
 

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The "History of Air-to-Air Refuelling" tome was written by an ex-Cobham chap, and is extremely heavy on technical detail of FRL products. In parts, it reads more like a technical training manual for budding service engineers. There are some interesting historical/development sections in there, but the technical stuff is very heavy going - even for someone who likes to know how things work.

I assume it's OK to show contents page.
 

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CJGibson said:
Precisely. It is heavy with technical info and cutaways of HDUs. Mine is a more of an overview of tankers around the world and prompts the question 'Just how mad are those Kiwis?"

Chris
Click to expand...

Okay.
I'll bite.
What have the Kiwis invented?
 
Also prompts the question 'Just how big were the windows at AirTanker plc's HQ and from how far away did they see the MoD coming?'

Chris
 
Here is an actual US refueling drogue that I did some work on in 2016. It is about 3 feet in diameter and about the same deep. The blades are 3/16" steel and the whole thing weighs 40ish lbs. The nylon cloth ring is open at the front for airflow to fill and open it. My job was to fill the cloth with pool noodle to simulate inflation at 0 mph for a refueling display.

Considering the heft of this thing waving around and hitting a refueling probe in a couple of hundred knots of bumpy air, I could easily imagine a probe getting damaged without too much effort.

The picture was taken in my front yard on a typical north Texas summer day when a drought was in full control with many 100+° days. My lawn stayed that color until the fall rains came.
 

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Richard N said:
Here is an actual US refueling drogue that I did some work on in 2016. It is about 3 feet in diameter and about the same deep. The blades are 3/16" steel and the whole thing weighs 40ish lbs. The nylon cloth ring is open at the front for airflow to fill and open it. My job was to fill the cloth with pool noodle to simulate inflation at 0 mph for a refueling display.

Considering the heft of this thing waving around and hitting a refueling probe in a couple of hundred knots of bumpy air, I could easily imagine a probe getting damaged without too much effort.

The picture was taken in my front yard on a typical north Texas summer day when a drought was in full control with many 100+° days. My lawn stayed that color until the fall rains came.
Click to expand...
Interesting pic. As you show here, drogues are hefty bits of kit to have waving about at the end of a hose at 300kt. One aspect I didn't get a chance to look into, and would like to, is how often probe/drogue problems affect operations compared with booms. Granted there's probably more probe/drogue refuelling happening than boom, but it would be interesting to look at.

I've read about ops being aborted due to broken probes, but never seen any stats. Anyone come across such info?

Your mission, is to proceed up the Nung River...

Chris
 
CJGibson said:
Granted there's probably more probe/drogue refuelling happening than boom, but it would be interesting to look at.
Click to expand...

Given the huge numbers of US boom tanker aircraft compared to the rest of the worlds tanker aircraft fleets from the 50's to date, the intense usage (Looking Glass, Vietnam etc.) isn't it possible that there have been more boom hookups than probe and drogue? Would have guessed that the volume of fuel transferred from boom is greater than probe and drogue for sure, but I think there's a real possibility that the number of contacts is greater as well (though not to as great a degree as fuel transferred).
 
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True, true, makes the question even more intriguing. Volume pumped USAF leads the field like Shergar in The Derby, contacts-wise, be interesting to find out. Are more operations scrubbed due to probe/drogue failures than boom failures?

Chris
 
CJGibson said:
True, true, makes the question even more intriguing. Volume pumped USAF leads the field like Shergar in The Derby, contacts-wise, be interesting to find out. Are more operations scrubbed due to probe/drogue failures than boom failures?

Chris
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Chuck the USN in the mix with all their buddy tanking contacts in the landing cycle and it gets even more complex...
 
Can anybody answer the Kiwi refuelling question yet?

Or are sales bad?

Chris
 
CJGibson said:
Can anybody answer the Kiwi refuelling question yet?

Or are sales bad?

Chris
Click to expand...
Yes, I can see why the New Zealand government decided not to replace the A-4. Too many naughty pilots that couldn’t be trusted with nice things ;)
 
Richard N said:
Here is an actual US refueling drogue that I did some work on in 2016. It is about 3 feet in diameter and about the same deep. The blades are 3/16" steel and the whole thing weighs 40ish lbs. The nylon cloth ring is open at the front for airflow to fill and open it. My job was to fill the cloth with pool noodle to simulate inflation at 0 mph for a refueling display.

Considering the heft of this thing waving around and hitting a refueling probe in a couple of hundred knots of bumpy air, I could easily imagine a probe getting damaged without too much effort.

The picture was taken in my front yard on a typical north Texas summer day when a drought was in full control with many 100+° days. My lawn stayed that color until the fall rains came.
Click to expand...
Didn't know Blue Envoy's books came with free refueling drogues :D

Joking aside, it truly does put the sense of scale of these drogues into place.

CJGibson said:
One aspect I didn't get a chance to look into, and would like to, is how often probe/drogue problems affect operations compared with booms. Granted there's probably more probe/drogue refuelling happening than boom, but it would be interesting to look at.

I've read about ops being aborted due to broken probes, but never seen any stats. Anyone come across such info?
Click to expand...
Is it possible to compare the results from aircraft which carry both booms and HDUs? Another possibility is seeing the difference between tankers with HDUs and booms on similar missions (for instance: comparing a VC10 to a KC-135 operating in the Gulf in 1991). The problem with this is that there are a lot of variables that have to be taken into account, thus making the job harder.
 
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