Originally Posted by
Trumpet trousers
Are you a politician? Completely worthless response as it did not answer my question!
Oh my. I specifically said the boom is designed to the contract spec. Do you really expect me to post all the minutia of the contract spec? But, in a nutshell, the contract spec references the
international axial loading limits for aerial refueling. A-10 is a US-only aircraft and for whatever reason does not appear there. And it has a much lower axial loading capability than the other aircraft. The boom is designed to sense the axial loading and if a parameter is exceeded, do an auto disconnect. USAF screwed up and did not specify this lower axial loading limit for A-10 in the KC-46 contract. Right now, A-10 can indeed be refueled by KC-46 (it's done so numerous times) but without axial loading auto disconnect protection. Boeing will provide a remedy, but at USAF expense.
As for the "KC135/KC10" booms, they are very different in design and operation, including their various protection systems and consequently have different specs. KC-46 uses the KC-10 boom with a modernized version of its axial load limit protection system. The parameters for the KC-46 boom axial load protection system were defined by the contract, which as noted above, inadvertently did not include the lower A-10 load limit. Happy now?