Ancient and Modern

[Flying Lawyer]

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101 Squadron VC10 C.1K



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AeroMed fit in a 99 Squadron TriStar


FL

[Dop]

Great pictures!

[BEagle]

Never knew 99 flew TriShaws.......;)

And as for flying with the autopilot engaged in MAN mode and the manual turn control deflected....either the thing wasn't properly trimmed or the pilots' hand should have been on the turn control!

[Seloco]

Out of interest, does XV104 still have its striking red "40 years" fin?

[wayoutwest]

great shots.sorry to ask a daft question but when inflight refuelling i assume that its the tanker that controls the op eg. height and speed . mike:ok::ok:

[Flying Lawyer]

BEagle's the man to give you a full answer but, in the meantime, as I understand it .....

Yes, the tanker 'controls the op eg. height and speed', although I assume there's an SOP, or more than one for different circs. We tanked at 20,000 feet which I understand is the norm.

The tanker flies a race-track pattern with its hose/drogue extended and the fighter inserts its probe into the trailing drogue. There's a pressure device in the drogue which grips the probe but they aren't 'locked' together; it releases when the fighter drops back.

I'd always assumed the receiving pilot aimed his probe at the drogue, but that's not correct. He aims between two markings on the tanker wing (or fuselag if refuelling from the central point of a three-point tanker), ignoring the drogue which is moving about in the slip-stream.

The Flight Engineer has a CCTV which enables him to see the receiving aircraft join, connect and depart.

There may or may not be R/T contact between tanker and receiving aircraft. eg On our sortie, the first Tornados practised 'Silent Procedures'.

The C1K has a refuelling pod under the outboard section of each wing. It can carry up to 69,800kgs of fuel, using the original 8 fuel tanks, which can be used by the aircraft itself or be dispensed to up to 2 refuelling aircraft simultaneously. It also has an air-to-air refuelling probe attached to the aircraft nose enabling it to refuel from another VC10K or TriStar AAR aircraft.

Most of the single-role AAR fleet are K3 and K4 which are three-point tankers. In addition to the refuelling pods under each wing, there's a Hose Drum Unit mounted under the fuselage.
The K3 has internal tanks in the cabin, giving a maximum fuel load of 68 tonnes.
The K4, which doesn't have internal tanks, can carry up to 78 tonnes.
The wing hoses can transfer fuel at up to 1000kgs/minute and are used to refuel fast-jet aircraft.
The HDU transfer is slower - up to 2000kgs/minute - and is usually used to refuel heavy aircraft.
I assume the fuel-flow figures vary with flight level(?)



BTW, the Americans use a different system. Instead of a trailing hose, there's a boom operated by a crewman in the tanker.
BEagle and I visited a Victor tanker squadron (55 Squadron, if my memory serves me correctly) when we were on a London UAS summer camp at RAF Marham in or about 1971. The view then was that the trailing hose method was better. I assume neither the RAF nor USAF have changed their opinion since.


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.

[Tarnished]

Having done them both from the receiving end, p&d in Lightning, Tornado and Typhoon and boom in Eagle I thought I would throw in the following observations about the pros and cons of each.

Probe & Drogue
Pros: Once contact established you have a much greater (relative) freedom of movement i.e. you can drag the hose around a fair bit before the tanker crew start bleating or the probe starts complaining. You can get 2 fighters plugged at the same time. You have a redundancy should one hose fail or have a probe tip left behind in it.

Cons: Slightly more tricky to make contact particularly for the inexpeienced and particularly in turbulence. Lower flow rates than possible with the boom, therefore longer in contact.

Boom
Pros: Higher transfer pressures/rates (providing the receiver can take it - not all can). Nice traffic light system that the "boomer" can use to guide you into the correct position. Secure intercom with the boomer once connected to allow you to have a nice chat..

Cons: Very little freedom of movement when in contact, quite demanding. Two people are involved, the boomer "flies" the boom and extends it into the recepticle and the pilot puts the jet in the right place. No redundancy.

Flying Lawyer is absolutely correct in saying you use reference marks on the tanker to position correctly for the contact. You can always tell when someone "sneaks a peak" at the basket and probe tip at the vinegar strokes - it all starts to get a bit wobbly.

Cheers

tarnished

[brickhistory]

Slightly pedantic - USAF (not counting helos) uses the boom method, USN and USMC use the probe and drogue method. Many USAF tankers can do both now; I believe some KC-135s still have to be configured on the ground with an adaptor for the boom that trails a drogue. Limits it to drogue ops only however.

Great photos!

[zarniwoop]

Seloco, I live a couple of miles from Brize Norton and haven't seen the red tail for a little while now, though one of the aircraft is now sporting a rather nice black and yellow paint scheme to celebrate the 90th anniversary of 101 squadron, there are some pictures on airliners.net.

[Flying Lawyer]

Seloco

Sorry, I missed the question when posting previously.

No, it doesn't.




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[Dan Winterland]

BEagle, surely you can remember that if you've been doing lots of turning (such as on a towline) with the turn cut out (7 degrees?) activated, the AP gyros could get a bit of a tilt and the turn knob wouldn't be central if you wanted S+L.

You're right FL - it looks ancient!

[Seloco]

Thanks FL; I feared the powers-that-be would probably cover it with low-vis rather quickly....

Those are tremendous pictures by the way -thanks for posting them. To say that I'm jealous would not be doing justice to the word. Yesterday it was exactly 40 years since I last flew in a VC10 (a BOAC Super..) and I would still love to repeat the experience.

[BEagle]

Yes Dan - and that's what lazy people did.....



....if they wanted to stay as lowly C Cat Untermensch. The correct technique is to disconnect the AP, retrim, then re-engage the AP.

In any case, this one isn't on a towline as it's climbing with 96% at 2000 ft/min with 5250 ft to cruise level - I understand that the co-pilot was tweaking the aircraft onto the correct heading for Shawbury. And has been getting banter from his mates for the piccie and moans from the Plumbers for using 96%!

Of course, in the rancid C1K you can't fly from the RHS with AP1 in NAV mode unless the LHS pilot has the source switch to INS... I suggested a mod. to overcome this, but the dinosaurs weren't interested back then. But whyt not use HDG mode?

Anyway, it looks like a typically fun tanking sortie - and I hope my fellow members of the Guild enjoyed the day out!

[windriver]

Great pix... went for a jolly in a Victor yonks ago. Maybe it's everyday stuff for the crews but it sure impressed the hell out of me.

Had I been on this flight the temptation to give this splendid device a turn whilst no one was looking would have been overwhelming...

What would have happened??

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[BEagle]

It would have opened the chemtrail valves and released soporific "I love Tony Blair" chemicals over the immediate area.....












No, actually it's the rudder trim. It would cause the aircraft to yaw and the Air Engineer to break all your fingers. Very slowly.....