View Full Version : inflight refueling?
flapsforty
16th Feb 2003, 19:01
My son is wondering if somebody could please tell him if there exist any nicknames for inflight refueling aircrafts like the KC-10. He saw a discovery program about them.
He's been bugging me for days, we have googled to no avail, you gentlemen are our last hope. ;)
Thank you very much.
Well, the formal name of the KC-10 is the Extender; the unofficial one Texaco.
But if you want a generic term that was widely used when asking for a tanker, there was, "request gravy boat".
Never personally used nicknames for RAF tanker types.
(Just did a google and the KC-135 would seem, at various times, to have been called the Stratotanker, the StratoBladder, the Steam Jet and the Fanbird (135R) and the KC-10, Snoopy, though I have no idea why).
BEagle
16th Feb 2003, 19:24
Generic term - 'tanker'.
Fighter looking for nearest tanker: "Vectors to Texaco please"
Aircraft:
KC10A - Extender. Don't know of an affectionate name.
TriStar - Timmy.
VC10 - Vickers Funbus
KC135, KC-135FR - 135
Hey Beagle, what about Tommy?
BEagle
16th Feb 2003, 20:10
Tommy is a TriStar freighter - but only called that down in the Islas Malvinas. Everyone else calls TriStars 'Timmy' or other, ruder names like 'Pink Pig' in the Gulf War when 2 were painted desert pink and based at KKIA.
rivetjoint
16th Feb 2003, 20:39
A US saying you see on a lot of patches is NKAWTG "No Kicking Ass Without Tanker Gas"
Always liked the Tommy, mail time. I can remember when we got a message they were offloading the mail because of "higher priority freight". CBFFI sent a message back that if the mail wasn't on board, he'd refuse landing permission.
We got the mail. ;) ;)
BEagle
16th Feb 2003, 20:55
We were once told that 'due to the bad weather in the UK, they'd had to offload the mail'! It turned out that whatbhad actually ahppened was that the QNH was so low in the UK that they'd run out of RTOW - and as the mail was the last to go on, it was the first to come off. Not the crew's fault, of course - but it hit morale prety badly as it was the second TriStar to leave the mail behind in succession.....
Wouldn't have been so bad if either the telephone system or internet were reliable down there.
Farfrompuken
16th Feb 2003, 21:04
Beags,
Vickers Funbus???? You mean Skoda:-)
Mind you, that's probably a compliment nowadays!
Being a Timmy/Tommy operator, I always thought a Tommy wasn't just the freigter, but the tanker too. Timmy is the AT variant.
Anyway, they're all 'Force Extenders' now
:O