How very quaint! Presumably the 'travelling back in time' event (1305 - 1345 - 1305) wasn't very common....
But the idea lives on. In the world's only 21st Century multi-hose tanker currently in service, the following are some of the features of the full-colour fuel graph displayed to the Air Refuelling Operator:
- The fuel line is planned automatically using the exact fuel burn corresponding to the tanker weight at any time.
- Either still-air, forecast or stat. met can be used. Stat met can be anywhere from 35-95%.
- Planned receiver offloads are automatically entered.
- Minimum Off-Task and Minimum Div fuel ('final reserve') are automatically calculated.
- In flight, the actual fuel at any time is updated every few seconds and the actual fuel line is automatically shown on the planned fuel graph in a different colour.
- In flight, the spare fuel and 'foxtrot' state are continuously displayed in numerical form on the fuel graph.
Why? Because I specified such requirements! It also plans trails automatically, including 'single click' single hose plan reversion. It's like having an AARC who doesn't trash hire cars, get himself banned from Atlanta, have 'blonde moments' or miss the transport...
