Originally Posted by
JW411
The whole refuel kit weighed about 1,200 lbs. Surprisingly, our lords and masters didn't start taking them off until 1975.
IIRC there was one occasion, around 1973, when pax had to be offloaded as the aircraft had a probe whereas the load sheets had assumed no probe. That suggests not all had probes by then.
The probe weight 110lbs IIRC and would have had a significant effect on CoG.
On AAR, the problem was the need to activate a refuelling trail as we did not have enough tankers to maintain a route. Nor did we really have enough aircraft to make it worth activating a route.
For instance V-bombers could deploy to the far east faster than the route could be activated. Fighters needed to be escorted so again a tanker-escort was faster than a tanker activated route. The exception was the interim Victor 1 tanker that needed the route to be activated for the Victor to refuel. For transports like the VC10 and Belfast it was cheaper to stage than flight refuel.
Only after the Falklands did long range flight refuelling become a necessity.