Originally Posted by
BEagle
The TriStar fuel pipe issue came about due to someone's clever idea
to have an operational reason to refuel from both pods and the centreline hose simultaneously. Under such circumstances, the original pipe size would have been inadequate...
Interesting. So the undersized pipe is not the pipe in the wing feeding the pod, it is a main feed pipe (fuel manifold) that feeds all three hose drogue systems. Interesting.
A pity that the TriStar never had pods - it would have been extremely useful with multi-hose capability and a massive fuel offload potential.
Agreed. Same applies to KC-10. For whatever reason only a few KC-10s have been equipped with wing pods.
All history now though.
As for the F-35, I thought that it was originally seen as an F-16 / F-18 replacement, low cost (hah!) and stealthy?
I don't think it was seen as an F-16/F-18 "replacement" so much as an airplane in those aircraft's size class. As opposed to the size class of the F-14/F-15.. In other words, the "low" of the "high/low" mix with F-22 being the "high". And to ensure it stayed "small", "light", and "cheap" it was required to be single engine. And by being able to service all three US services (USAF, USN, USMC) it could be mass produced at high build rates, further driving down costs. And because it's small and light, it would have simple systems. Basically they were trying to force the JSF down the development path followed by F-16. Small, light, simple, & mass produced. But by growing the engine they were able to grow the airplane so it was neither small nor light. And they stuffed it full of bleeding edge systems never before used on any aircraft, so simple was gone. And while yes, it does service all three US services, there is really little structural commonality. Lack of commonality, size, weight, and extreme complexity ensured it could not possibly be cheap.
And it was always supposed to be optimized for air-to-ground while preserving air-to-air capability. It was never supposed to be the 9G turning fighter the F-16 was. F-22 was to cover the really critical air to air missions. USN took a decidedly different approach and always viewed F-35 and stealth in general as but one piece of their air power puzzle. Looks like USAF is now going down that path also They want to not only preserve their legacy non stealth F-15 fleet, they want to recapitalize them with new-build F-15Xs. Round and round we go.
Anyway, back to tankers. How's the KC-46A going down with the end users now that they've finally got their hands on it?
The folks at McConnell AFB are loving it. Large numbers of blue suiters have been in Everett for some time learning the airplane and its systems and assisting Boeing in writing the maintenance and tech documents. Now that they've got their own toys to play with, they're ecstatic.