Northrup Grumman/EADS win USAF tanker bid
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Yes, BEagle, Boeing touted the 2-3-2 seating in the 767 as putting no SLF more than one seat away from an aisle.
It wouldn't take much of a genius to make tanks that slide into the cargo compartments in non-ER 767s. As most know, ferry tanks have been built and used routinely to get short range airliners across long distances, such as to Hawaii. The lower gross weight of the non -ER 200 would have to be considered, however.
As for JP-7, I've seen McDoug promo videos of SR-71 offloads from the KC-10A. At the same time, they advertise the KC-10A as being able to burn from the offload fuel.
The KC-10A were first fitted with wing baskets just a few years after delivery from McD. It wasn't a big deal. The boom control, btw, is an MD-80 Digital Flight Guidance Computer.
Also in yesterday's news: three Airbus lobbyists are on McCain's campaign staff. So much for technical prowess being the driver of the contract award. You can expect Hillary or Obama, our next president, to cripple the EADS tanker deal next year if it isn't already dead by then.
Historical perspective: Just before the 1976 election, the CEO of Rockwell published a nasty letter to all employees about candidate Jimmy Carter. Sure enough, Carter canceled the Rockwell B-1A. Reagan revived it four years later as the B-1B. It never has been very useful, AFAIK.
GB
It wouldn't take much of a genius to make tanks that slide into the cargo compartments in non-ER 767s. As most know, ferry tanks have been built and used routinely to get short range airliners across long distances, such as to Hawaii. The lower gross weight of the non -ER 200 would have to be considered, however.
As for JP-7, I've seen McDoug promo videos of SR-71 offloads from the KC-10A. At the same time, they advertise the KC-10A as being able to burn from the offload fuel.
The KC-10A were first fitted with wing baskets just a few years after delivery from McD. It wasn't a big deal. The boom control, btw, is an MD-80 Digital Flight Guidance Computer.
Also in yesterday's news: three Airbus lobbyists are on McCain's campaign staff. So much for technical prowess being the driver of the contract award. You can expect Hillary or Obama, our next president, to cripple the EADS tanker deal next year if it isn't already dead by then.
Historical perspective: Just before the 1976 election, the CEO of Rockwell published a nasty letter to all employees about candidate Jimmy Carter. Sure enough, Carter canceled the Rockwell B-1A. Reagan revived it four years later as the B-1B. It never has been very useful, AFAIK.
GB
Leaving your politics aside (I wish you lot would just get on with it and stop boring the rest of the world with your tedious election system), the simple fact is that there is no 'simple' solution!
Ferry tanks for an airliner have to support a burn rate of around 75 kg/min. However, a dual hose tanker has to offload fuel at 2500 kg/min. So unless there is a centre tank which is kept topped up from other tanks, or there is a high flowrate fuel dump gallery which can be tapped into, a few 'cargo bay' ferry tanks are of little use. Particularly if they reduce the cargo carrying capability of the aircraft - only an idiot would buy a single role tanker!
Fitting pods to the McDonnell-Douglas KC-10 and the Boeing KC-135 was far from being 'no big deal'. It took them a long time to sort out the aerodynamics, something which took Boeing even longer on its stillborn Frankentanker.
The A330MRTT doesn't need any extra fuel tanks. I'm not sure, but it might have a modified internal transfer system, as does the A310MRTT. The success of the A310MRTT programme wasn't lost on the KC-X selectors, neither was the success of the KC-30B or the A310 Boom Demonstrator test aircraft.
The USAF have said that they don't want the tanker programme delayed by whining politicians and fatcat lawyers bleating about why Boeing lost so comprehensively. I just hope that this point will be made again and again.
Hillary or Obama for your next president? Do me a favour....
Ferry tanks for an airliner have to support a burn rate of around 75 kg/min. However, a dual hose tanker has to offload fuel at 2500 kg/min. So unless there is a centre tank which is kept topped up from other tanks, or there is a high flowrate fuel dump gallery which can be tapped into, a few 'cargo bay' ferry tanks are of little use. Particularly if they reduce the cargo carrying capability of the aircraft - only an idiot would buy a single role tanker!
Fitting pods to the McDonnell-Douglas KC-10 and the Boeing KC-135 was far from being 'no big deal'. It took them a long time to sort out the aerodynamics, something which took Boeing even longer on its stillborn Frankentanker.
The A330MRTT doesn't need any extra fuel tanks. I'm not sure, but it might have a modified internal transfer system, as does the A310MRTT. The success of the A310MRTT programme wasn't lost on the KC-X selectors, neither was the success of the KC-30B or the A310 Boom Demonstrator test aircraft.
The USAF have said that they don't want the tanker programme delayed by whining politicians and fatcat lawyers bleating about why Boeing lost so comprehensively. I just hope that this point will be made again and again.
Hillary or Obama for your next president? Do me a favour....
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767 Avionics Suite
MarkD, weren't you the one disparaging the 767 cockpit as being steam gauges like the DC-10? Wrong..
The 767 has a common cockpit and common avionics with the 757, with extensive use of digital data busses, Arinc 429. It has been the basis of all subsequent cockpits, having 6 tubes for flight and engine displays.
In fact, the 747-400 cockpit was only refined from the 757/767 standard, having larger CRTs. Most of the same stuff was used in the 737-300 and later, up to where it adopted the 777 cockpit components.
Outfits such as IS&S are retrofitting 767s, etc., with new large format displays in place of the original EFIS, and they do it in just a few days.
Except for instances of new applications, avionics boxes for Comm, Nav, Identification from the newer generation planes plug right into the 767, thanks to Arinc (Aeronautical Radio, Inc.) standards.
The 757/767 triplex Cat IIIb/Cat IIIc autoland is legendary. The Flight Control Computer was modernized for the 747-400. Being backfittable, the new one became standard on 767 new production. Boeing demonstrated autoland in a 767 with the new computer, in a 35 knot crosswind -- on one engine.
That same Flight Control Computer is in the 777. Except for interiors, when something works, commercial aircraft stick wtih it. New and shiny is not usually compatible with most bang for the buck.
GB
The 767 has a common cockpit and common avionics with the 757, with extensive use of digital data busses, Arinc 429. It has been the basis of all subsequent cockpits, having 6 tubes for flight and engine displays.
In fact, the 747-400 cockpit was only refined from the 757/767 standard, having larger CRTs. Most of the same stuff was used in the 737-300 and later, up to where it adopted the 777 cockpit components.
Outfits such as IS&S are retrofitting 767s, etc., with new large format displays in place of the original EFIS, and they do it in just a few days.
Except for instances of new applications, avionics boxes for Comm, Nav, Identification from the newer generation planes plug right into the 767, thanks to Arinc (Aeronautical Radio, Inc.) standards.
The 757/767 triplex Cat IIIb/Cat IIIc autoland is legendary. The Flight Control Computer was modernized for the 747-400. Being backfittable, the new one became standard on 767 new production. Boeing demonstrated autoland in a 767 with the new computer, in a 35 knot crosswind -- on one engine.
That same Flight Control Computer is in the 777. Except for interiors, when something works, commercial aircraft stick wtih it. New and shiny is not usually compatible with most bang for the buck.
GB
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ORAC
Interesting question, but I think Boeing have always tended to build in tooling, rather than against chalk marks on the hangar floor...
As an aside - after the problems the RAF found in building internal tanks for the purchased old VC-1s, and the wings for the Nimrod. If they USAF bought second hand 767s, how "bespoke" are the airframes, and would they be able to mass manufacture new centre line tanks? or would the costs, after the lessons of trying to fit the second set, escalate out of existence?
I wish you lot would just get on with it and stop boring the rest of the world with your tedious election system
It's time for Boeing to cowboy up and admit it lost. Beagle, you better pray that McCain wins or your pay check may be in peril.
As an example of the folly of using old secondhand airliners as tankers, consider the VC10K4.
These were Vickers Super VC10s bought from ba after they airline acquired its 747s. They then sat around in far from desert-dry conditions for years and years until they were ferried to Filton to be modified - at typically high BWoS prices - into VC10K4 tankers.
I collected ZD230 from Filton on 15 Dec 1994. This was an historic aircraft as it had been the prototype Super VC10 - it still had the structural reinforcement for the trials anti-spin parachute mortar left over from the 1960s.
Twelve years later the RAF scrapped it. What a complete and utter waste of money the project had been. And a sad end to a very nice aeroplane.....
If, instead, the MoD had bought the new A310MRTTs BWoS Filton had proposed at around that time, they would undoubtedly still have 20 years of life left in them today...
Oh - and graybeard, 'Walter Kennedy' is a contributor to the 'Chinook' thread at the top of the Mil. forum. Despite being told many times that his theory of SEALS scuttling about on the Mull of Kintyre with wacky wirlesses luring the Chinook to disaster like some latter day Sirens is complete nonsense, he persists with his one man crusade.
As for £10 - I wouldn't be so quick to kiss that off. £10 buys quite a lot of Yankee dollar$ these days...
These were Vickers Super VC10s bought from ba after they airline acquired its 747s. They then sat around in far from desert-dry conditions for years and years until they were ferried to Filton to be modified - at typically high BWoS prices - into VC10K4 tankers.
I collected ZD230 from Filton on 15 Dec 1994. This was an historic aircraft as it had been the prototype Super VC10 - it still had the structural reinforcement for the trials anti-spin parachute mortar left over from the 1960s.
Twelve years later the RAF scrapped it. What a complete and utter waste of money the project had been. And a sad end to a very nice aeroplane.....
If, instead, the MoD had bought the new A310MRTTs BWoS Filton had proposed at around that time, they would undoubtedly still have 20 years of life left in them today...
Oh - and graybeard, 'Walter Kennedy' is a contributor to the 'Chinook' thread at the top of the Mil. forum. Despite being told many times that his theory of SEALS scuttling about on the Mull of Kintyre with wacky wirlesses luring the Chinook to disaster like some latter day Sirens is complete nonsense, he persists with his one man crusade.
As for £10 - I wouldn't be so quick to kiss that off. £10 buys quite a lot of Yankee dollar$ these days...
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BEagle - ZD235 was even less value for money. It must have only served for about 6 years, and was scrapped to save the cost of it's (first?) major servicing. Rumour has it that better airfames were cut up for spares whilst this one was converted.
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The only evidence you've provided with that last post, BEagle is that governments are incompetent - all of them. Some are just worse than others. When the measure of success is the size of the budget, rather than profit and loss, stupidity will reign.
Has anybody seen the order book for the A330 freighter?
Thanks for the elucidation on Walter Kennedy, and yes, I know the value of our worthless dollar. That's why it is even more painful to subsize EU countries with our tax dollars, buying new and shiny when used is a better value.
At the end of 2000, an ounce of gold ($270) would buy about ten barrels of oil. It still does.
While I'm typing, you misunderstood my comments about ferry tanks. I was not recommending ferry tanks for retrofitting into lower cargo pits of 767s, but new custom size tanks that could be slid in via existing cargo doors and attached semi-permanently. The max rate of transfer can be whatever is designed in.
Tanker retrofits have been done on the 767, and on DC10s, the KDC-10.
GB
Has anybody seen the order book for the A330 freighter?
Thanks for the elucidation on Walter Kennedy, and yes, I know the value of our worthless dollar. That's why it is even more painful to subsize EU countries with our tax dollars, buying new and shiny when used is a better value.
At the end of 2000, an ounce of gold ($270) would buy about ten barrels of oil. It still does.
While I'm typing, you misunderstood my comments about ferry tanks. I was not recommending ferry tanks for retrofitting into lower cargo pits of 767s, but new custom size tanks that could be slid in via existing cargo doors and attached semi-permanently. The max rate of transfer can be whatever is designed in.
Tanker retrofits have been done on the 767, and on DC10s, the KDC-10.
GB
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"That's why it is even more painful to subsize EU countries with our tax dollars, buying new and shiny when used is a better value."
yes but in this case used clearly isn't better value, your adoption of the "fingers in ears, la la la, i'm not listening" approach to the debate won't change that fact
New builds are better value over the WHOLE LIFE of the aircraft, thats true fiscal responsibility
oh and we know there "tools not toys" so spare patronising twadle
yes but in this case used clearly isn't better value, your adoption of the "fingers in ears, la la la, i'm not listening" approach to the debate won't change that fact
New builds are better value over the WHOLE LIFE of the aircraft, thats true fiscal responsibility
oh and we know there "tools not toys" so spare patronising twadle
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Graybeard,
I think that BEagle was trying to illustrate what happens when governments regard buying tankers as a low priority and go down the route of secondhand conversions. The RAF has suffered from this attitude and has traditionally had to "make-do and mend" with aircraft that were procured for other roles (V-bombers) or that it suited the government to foist on them for their own reasons.
Unless you can find a single-source of right number of secondhand aircraft, all originally ordered by the same airline, you will end up with a hotch-potch of different versions. The RAF managed to end up with 4 different types of VC10 and 3 different types of TriStar in a fleet of less than 30. This makes tasking, training, maintenance and fleet managment so much more difficult. The numbers that USAF require would make a secondhand fleet a total nightmare.
Fitting extra fuel tanks is something that is easy to propose, but hard to sucessfully achieve. A permanent installation may severely limit the aircraft's ability to be used as a transport asset and I haven't yet seen a successful temporary fit. The extra fuel tanks in the VC10 made them a single-role aircraft and the TriStar was given too much fuel capacity, which degraded it's flexibilty as a transport.
Your argument that the low utilization rate of tankers does not require a new-build fleet would carry more weight if the aircraft were intended solely for AAR and were going to spend their time on alert, like the KC-135 fleet did for the first half of it's life. However, KC-X is instrumental in the modernization of AMC and will be utilized at a much higher rate in the transport role.
The USAF top ranks said many times that this aircraft will have to do more, at a higher rate, than it's predecessors. Unlike their counterparts in the UK, they seem to realize that their next generation tanker/transport is in many ways more important than other, "sexier", projects.
In the UK we have often had to lament the fact that our forces have been provided with inferior, but home-built, equipment. However, on the occasions that we have bought American equipment I have never heard it described as "subsidizing" the US - we were just glad to have the best kit and didn't care from whence it came.
The KC-30 is a superior aircraft to the KC-767 and the US Forces will benefit from this decison.
I think that BEagle was trying to illustrate what happens when governments regard buying tankers as a low priority and go down the route of secondhand conversions. The RAF has suffered from this attitude and has traditionally had to "make-do and mend" with aircraft that were procured for other roles (V-bombers) or that it suited the government to foist on them for their own reasons.
Unless you can find a single-source of right number of secondhand aircraft, all originally ordered by the same airline, you will end up with a hotch-potch of different versions. The RAF managed to end up with 4 different types of VC10 and 3 different types of TriStar in a fleet of less than 30. This makes tasking, training, maintenance and fleet managment so much more difficult. The numbers that USAF require would make a secondhand fleet a total nightmare.
Fitting extra fuel tanks is something that is easy to propose, but hard to sucessfully achieve. A permanent installation may severely limit the aircraft's ability to be used as a transport asset and I haven't yet seen a successful temporary fit. The extra fuel tanks in the VC10 made them a single-role aircraft and the TriStar was given too much fuel capacity, which degraded it's flexibilty as a transport.
Your argument that the low utilization rate of tankers does not require a new-build fleet would carry more weight if the aircraft were intended solely for AAR and were going to spend their time on alert, like the KC-135 fleet did for the first half of it's life. However, KC-X is instrumental in the modernization of AMC and will be utilized at a much higher rate in the transport role.
The USAF top ranks said many times that this aircraft will have to do more, at a higher rate, than it's predecessors. Unlike their counterparts in the UK, they seem to realize that their next generation tanker/transport is in many ways more important than other, "sexier", projects.
In the UK we have often had to lament the fact that our forces have been provided with inferior, but home-built, equipment. However, on the occasions that we have bought American equipment I have never heard it described as "subsidizing" the US - we were just glad to have the best kit and didn't care from whence it came.
The KC-30 is a superior aircraft to the KC-767 and the US Forces will benefit from this decison.
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"The USAF top ranks said many times that this aircraft will have to do more, at a higher rate, than it's predecessors."
By what rationale will it have to do more than the KC-10A, which hauls more than the A330? How many hours are the KC-10 fleet getting now?
GB
By what rationale will it have to do more than the KC-10A, which hauls more than the A330? How many hours are the KC-10 fleet getting now?
GB
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the B-1B. It never has been very useful, AFAIK.
And that, sir, says it all.
If you don't know this then any of your posts relating to buying 'used' are just as feeble.
You refuse to listen to those who have 'been there, done that' including the USAF and the RAF.
'Used' simply doesn't save money/time/effort.
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Graybeard - if all used 762s available for refit are so fitted, then I stand corrected. I was not referring to new build 767s in that post.
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Boeing Tanker Protest Document
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GB,
I believe that rationale requiring the KC-X to do "more" than it's predecessors means that it will not just be a basic tanker like the KC-135s it is replacing. The KC-45 will be a combined AT/AAR asset, adding more airlift capability to AMC and complementing the KC-10. I don't think that anyone said that it will carry more in one sortie than the KC-10, but it is expected to achieve a higher utilization rate, increasing the impact that it makes.
The KC-45 will be network-enabled, contributing to the overall ISTAR effort and it will be fully equipped for the aeromed mission - something that has traditionally been the domain of T-tails. Moreover, as neither the cargo area nor the cabin have been compromised to achieve greater fuel capacity it will be easier to use in the pax-carrying role. So perhaps it can be seen as doing "more"?
The point about KC-10 flying hours is interesting. Are you implying that the KC-10 utilization rate is already so high that the the KC-45 won't be able to exceed it? Bearing in mind that this was a new-build fleet, anything other than a very low utilization rate adds further weight to the argument that a secondhand fleet is a bad idea. Or are you saying that the KC-10 is underworked?
I believe that rationale requiring the KC-X to do "more" than it's predecessors means that it will not just be a basic tanker like the KC-135s it is replacing. The KC-45 will be a combined AT/AAR asset, adding more airlift capability to AMC and complementing the KC-10. I don't think that anyone said that it will carry more in one sortie than the KC-10, but it is expected to achieve a higher utilization rate, increasing the impact that it makes.
The KC-45 will be network-enabled, contributing to the overall ISTAR effort and it will be fully equipped for the aeromed mission - something that has traditionally been the domain of T-tails. Moreover, as neither the cargo area nor the cabin have been compromised to achieve greater fuel capacity it will be easier to use in the pax-carrying role. So perhaps it can be seen as doing "more"?
The point about KC-10 flying hours is interesting. Are you implying that the KC-10 utilization rate is already so high that the the KC-45 won't be able to exceed it? Bearing in mind that this was a new-build fleet, anything other than a very low utilization rate adds further weight to the argument that a secondhand fleet is a bad idea. Or are you saying that the KC-10 is underworked?
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The A330 will have to get a new, longer nose gear housed in a blister, as you must know, to enable it to sit level on the ramp for cargo ops. Therefore, the A330 was not originally designed for cargo.
Potter wrote, "..neither the cargo area nor the cabin have been compromised to achieve greater fuel capacity.." Then where does the tanker fuel go?
Yes, I would like to know the utilization of the KC-10 fleet. They are based in just two places, which would not make sense if they are getting varied use. I was up close and personal with them when they were new and shiny, however.
The USAF has relied on commercial operators for hauling most of the troops and cargo since at least the mid 1960s. There is no way AMC can haul at lower cost, using $200 Million tankers.
I have a commercial background, not AF. My military time was with missiles that would knock down the hostiles, so I may have the wrong impression about the B-1B. It makes the news only when it gobbles a gaggle of geese. The B-52 does carpet bombing, and the B-2 has the glamour, but the B-1B is ignored for whatever reason. The reason I brought it up was to show that President Obama will undoubtedly cripple or cancel the KC-30/45, just as Pres. Carter canceled the B-1A.
No, Obama is not a good choice. Neither are the other two. Every election cycle I think the choice can't be worse than the last time. . then it is. We even got the worse of the pair the last two times.
Skimming through the Boeing rebuttal, the chiefs in the USAF will be fortunate if they can keep their jobs after such a flawed and skewed selection process. That rebuttal is written in refreshingly blunt language.
The proposed provenance of the first six KC-30 is a hoot. Who's going to build them, gitanos?
IOC in 2013? Deliveries of used 767s could begin next year.
GB
Potter wrote, "..neither the cargo area nor the cabin have been compromised to achieve greater fuel capacity.." Then where does the tanker fuel go?
Yes, I would like to know the utilization of the KC-10 fleet. They are based in just two places, which would not make sense if they are getting varied use. I was up close and personal with them when they were new and shiny, however.
The USAF has relied on commercial operators for hauling most of the troops and cargo since at least the mid 1960s. There is no way AMC can haul at lower cost, using $200 Million tankers.
I have a commercial background, not AF. My military time was with missiles that would knock down the hostiles, so I may have the wrong impression about the B-1B. It makes the news only when it gobbles a gaggle of geese. The B-52 does carpet bombing, and the B-2 has the glamour, but the B-1B is ignored for whatever reason. The reason I brought it up was to show that President Obama will undoubtedly cripple or cancel the KC-30/45, just as Pres. Carter canceled the B-1A.
No, Obama is not a good choice. Neither are the other two. Every election cycle I think the choice can't be worse than the last time. . then it is. We even got the worse of the pair the last two times.
Skimming through the Boeing rebuttal, the chiefs in the USAF will be fortunate if they can keep their jobs after such a flawed and skewed selection process. That rebuttal is written in refreshingly blunt language.
The proposed provenance of the first six KC-30 is a hoot. Who's going to build them, gitanos?
IOC in 2013? Deliveries of used 767s could begin next year.
GB
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Originally Posted by Graybeard
Skimming through the Boeing rebuttal, the chiefs in the USAF will be fortunate if they can keep their jobs after such a flawed and skewed selection process. That rebuttal is written in refreshingly blunt language.
Originally Posted by Graybeard
Potter wrote, "..neither the cargo area nor the cabin have been compromised to achieve greater fuel capacity.." Then where does the tanker fuel go?
Military passengers in a cargo aircraft put their baggage in the main compartment... I did flying to/from the Philippines and Japan in C-141s in 1984.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Thread Starter
All the fuel for the KC-45 is carried in the wet wing (111K Kgs) and tail. Airbus have qualified additional centre-line tanks (for the A310 MRTT), but they're not fitted.
The need for additional tanks was a mark against the bidder in the competition.
The need for additional tanks was a mark against the bidder in the competition.