That's utter bolleaux!
My fuel burn assessment (which came out within <100 kg per hour compared with the figure Boeing gave me much later), when allowance is made (as I have for A330) for pods fitted and hoses trailed in the mid-20s, was about 6% less for B767 than for A330.
Which carries over 50% more fuel. In any case, tanker fuel burn is but a small element of the overall AR fuel requirement.
To put this into context, on a typical North Sea towline task, if a max wt VC10K3 can provide 2:10 on task, an ex-ba B767 transferring fuel at the same rate could provide about an extra 6 minutes on task. But if you flew an A330 all the way from the Airbus factory at Toulouse to the same towline, gave fuel away at the same rate and then flew all the way back to Toulouse (500 nm south of Brize)again, how much extra time do you think you could have on the towline?
The answer? An extra hour! That's how good the extra capability of the future A330 will be.
Last edited by BEagle; 24th Jan 2004 at 21:17.