Re: Air Force Aerial Refueling Methods: Flying Boom versus Hose-and-Drogue

Kevin Brooks wrote:
"Mike" <yard22192@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1151524373.869141.306750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


the experts at work


<snip>

Air Force helicopters, and all Navy and Marine Corps aircraft refuel
using the "hose-anddrogue."


Not "all" USN aircraft; the E-6 Mercury TACAMO's use the boom.


NATO countries and other allies also refuel with the hose-and drogue.


F-16 users don't. Which is why Singapore and Turkey both have boom refueling. As do the new Japanese 767 tankers destined to support their F-15J's, F-2's, etc.


The statement doesn't say that NATO etc exclusively use hose-and-drogue. You picked up the real error in your E-6 comment.


<snip>

All boom-equipped tankers (i.e., KC-135, KC-10), have a single boom and
can refuel one aircraft at a time with this mechanism.


Unless, like some KC-135s/KC-10's, they *also* have multi-point hose-and-drogue capability.


They can still only fuel one aircraft from the boom at a time.


Many tanker
aircraft that employ
the hose-and-drogue system, can simultaneously employ two such
mechanisms - and,
refuel two aircraft simultaneously.


As can a lot of boom tankers when using the hose/drogue underwing pods in combo with their boom-mounted drogue; I belive they can actually handle up to *three* simultaneous receivers (at least the KC-10's can).

I believe he does mention this further in the article.



This CNS clown has already gotten a lot of details wrong (and one would expect the details to be *right* in such a potentially policy-influencing work); one wonders how he addresses the little fact that the boomers have the versatility to handle hose and drogue receivers, while the hosers can't do anything but wave at a receiver that has the boom recepticle?

Near the end of the article this is addressed.

Can I ask a question here (well, two, if you count this one)? Could a KC135/KC10 with a boom-mounted drogue still refuel a B52? If it can't then a boomer without MPRS will be waving at probe-only receivers. (The article says that a boom tanker can have a field conversion to handle drogue, but doesn't detail whether this is by fitting a USN buddy store, or by doing something to the boom.)

And what of the requirement (which won't go away) to refuel the larger aircraft (i.e., B-1B, B-52, B-2, C-5, C-17, E-8, RC-135, etc.) that can indeed still use the full greater capacity of the boom unit?

That's addressed (reformatted for clarity):
<quote>
One option would be to replace the oldest KC-135s with new aircraft equipped with two refueling hoses. Structural modifications to commercial aircraft to accommodate a flying boom are more significant than the modifications for hose-and-drogue mechanisms. The boom itself also costs more than the hose-and-drogue and is more complex. Thus, these new aircraft would likely be less costly than new, boom-equipped tankers. Newer KC-135s and KC-10s with booms would need to be retained to refuel large aircraft.

Another option would be to replace the oldest KC-135s with new,
boom-equipped tankers and to outfit the remaining tankers with the Multipoint Refueling System (MPRS).
</quote>

To summarise -

Option 1 - keep the newer boom tankers, scrap the old ones, buy new hose- tankers because they're cheaper than buying new boom tankers. This leaves you with both boom tankers and hose tankers.

Option 2 - scrap the oldest tankers, convert the rest to MPRS (both boom and hose), buy new boom tankers.

(For some reason, I'm not spotting the suggestion that new-buy tankers should come with both booms _and_ hoses. Wouldn't it be cheaper to plumb them up from new?)

Anyhow - in both cases you've still got booms to refuel the heavies.


Enough of his rant.


Where would we be without a good rant now and then? :-)


Brooks



--
Duncan.

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