Originally Posted by
vascodegama
CC
The A330/Voyager/MRTT operate fully compliant with civilian performance-not the ancient rules applied to the KC135.
The only stopper for refuelling a V22 would be the AAR speed -is 180 KCAS too fast for a V22 and where is the evidence that a KC46 could do it any slower?
The KC46 doesn't seem to doing too well in the refuelling stakes at the moment.
The statement regarding "...fully compliant with civilian performance.." is likely true---but irrelevant. Also, not sure what "ancient rules" to which you're referring. The fact of the matter is that while the A330/KC-45 may be superior in balanced field length, balanced field length was not the measurement used in the specification. In any case, this is clearly a straw man, since
runway length required was not where the issue was.
Regarding your V-22 point, I trust you are being sarcastic. Why would anyone want to AAR a V-22 at a speed that has to be pretty close to a KC-45 stall speed at that weight in refueling configuration, when a V-22 can easily maintain a speed
70 to 90 knots (and maybe more) faster? I'm not sure about the exact issue(s) involved, just that GAO found that the AF had not properly validated that the A330 could refuel all USAF fixed wing aircraft.
As I said some time back, I'm not going to defend the poor performance post award, I'm just discussing the award itself. Like I also said, though, given how badly this has been administered and how much extra USAF demanded beyond a basic KC-767, I suspect that had Airbus kept the award, they'd be in trouble as well.