Haletown said:
Will you be / are you qualified for in-flight refueling ? Would be a very useful qual when operating with Allies.
HT:
I used to be qualified for AR when I was flying this thing with the USAF from 2001-2004.
But not any longer.
We're not going to bother with AR.
With the ER tanks we'll have plenty of gas to do what we need within our crew duty days.
Also, since the CF does not possess any "boom" tankers (KC-135 or KC-10) it will be very problematic to keep our crews current in AR skills.
Scheduling will be a nightmare.
Also, that fuel that comes down that boom to the receiver in-flight .... very expensive.
Once you factor in all the costs, that gas that the receiver takes on in-flight costs 9 times what it costs to pump it out of the ground.
We can't afford that ....... :'(
245,000 lbs of gas - that's gives me about 10 - 11 hours of cruise time (probably a bit more) doing 400-500 miles per hour depending on winds and weight.
That'll do us nicely .....
I'm not a big fan of being Snowbird #4 and flying line astern 18' away from a KC-10 trying to pass highly flammable fuel down a nozzle under high pressure at me at 25,000' in the air ........ it takes about 20 minutes to take on about 60-70,000 lbs of fuel. No fun at all.
There but for the grace of God ......
[edit - spelling]