USAF change AAR
He's just a bit higher, perhaps to give wingtip clearance. When refuelling 2 F14s behind a Victor, their wingtips were only a couple of feet apart and one used to go high.
I've refuelled 3 Mirage 2000s behind a Victor - but that wasn't official.
I've refuelled 3 Mirage 2000s behind a Victor - but that wasn't official.
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Ian 16th - that will be "Station BADGE" then
But I'm sorry to read that many in the UK believe that the nightjar is extinct.
TTN will know what I mean
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Since you asked:
The main reason was because Gen Curtiss LeMay didn't like his aircraft using a British system.
The full story, afaik follows:
It started with the Berlin airlift and the Cold War...
From June 20, 1948 the Soviet Union stopped all Allied land and sea traffic from getting into, or out of, Western Berlin in an attempt to take control of the city. Lieutenant General Curtiss LeMay was Commander United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and was consulted before Allied Forces commenced the Berlin Airlift; supplies were flown into West Berlin. Flight Refuelling Limited (FRL - Sir Alan Cobham's company) was the first private contractor to become involved in the effort and provided a total of 12 Lancastrian tankers to deliver aviation fuel, usually to RAF Wunstorf. The blockade ended on May 12, 1949, but on October 19, 1948, LeMay returned to the US to take over as Commander Strategic Air Command (SAC), which had been formed just 7 months earlier, on March 21, 1946. On September 18, 1947 the United States Army Air Forces transformed into the United States Air Force (USAF).
The RAF in the UK decided that there was no future in AAR, but the USAF became imbroiled in a battle with the US Navy over who should carry the nation’s nuclear deterrent. LeMay’s role became to ensure that the USAF would be the military branch most capable of delievering Nuclear weapons to any target on the planet, but all he had available to do that was a handful of piston engined B-29s.
General Carl Spaatz (who had been the captain of the famous ‘Question Mark’ aircraft when he was a Major), became the first Chief of Staff of the USAF in September 1947 and decided that AAR was the ‘enabler’ that would prove the Air Force more capable than the Navy. He despatched a group of senior officers led by Jimmy Doolittle (who was an employee of the Shell Oil company before the war), who was accompanied by Boeing engineer Cliff Leisy, to visit Sir Alan Cobham and FRL in England. Doolittle, who had been a fan of AAR since before the war, returned to the US with a positive report, 2 sets of AAR equipment and a guarantee of technical support from FRL.
Leisy took the AAR systems to Boeing’s plant in Wichita, Kansas, where they were used to modify B-29 Superfortresses. An initial order of 40 units was placed, which was later upped to 100. Cobham was in the money, since he had bought all the “Tiger Force” systems (600 of which were ordered to provide force extension AAR for attacks on Japan) back from the British Air Ministry at scrap-metal prices. By the end of 1948 the USAF had 2 active AAR Squadrons, equipped with the modified aircraft, designated Boeing KB-29M tankers. The USAF demonstrated their new capability by performing a practice nuclear strike exercise on Hawaii.
From February 26, 1949 to March 2, 1949 the grappling system AAR devices of the KB-29Ms were also used to refuel ‘Lucky Lady II’, a B-50A Superfortress that had been modified as a receiver, when she completed the first ever circumnavigation of the globe without landing (Commanded by Capt. James C. Gallagher with a crew of 14). After the flight LeMay announced to the world that the USAF could now “deliver an atomic bomb to anywhere in the world that requires an atomic bomb”. An order for a new aircraft carrier for the Navy was cancelled and new bombers were instead ordered for the Air Force.
There were still problems with the actual AAR system; they hadn’t evolved much since Alexander Seversky’s original concept of 1917. 30 years of development had gone into aircraft technology and jet aircraft were on the production line. The Gloster Meteor, for example, had been in service with the RAF since June 1944. These new jet propelled aircraft had closed canopies and, by 1946, pressurized cockpits. So the pilots couldn’t open the canopies in flight and, even if they could, there was no crewman to control the AAR system. Unknown to Cobham and FRL, Boeing started research into a new system, that would suit high-speed, high-altitude, single-seat fighter refuelling.
Sir Alan Cobham was asked by Generals from the USAF if he had anything in the works for refuelling high performance aircraft he didn't, but pretended that he did. He, and his engineers, conceived, manufactured and tested the probe and drogue system in just 4 months. The ‘probe and drogue’ system was ready for demonstration in April 1949. A Lancaster was fiited with a Hose Drum Unit (HDU) and a Gloster Meteor was fitted with a probe. General Franklin Carroll, director of research and development at USAF Air Materiel Command viewed the demonstrations and, on his reccommendation, 4 Boeing B-29s and 2 Republic F-84 Thunderjets were sent to the UK for probe and drogue conversion. In August 1949 a Lancaster tanker refuelled a Meteor receiver that set the world Jet aircraft endurance record, of 12 hours and 3 minutes. Before the end of the year more USAF B-29s were arriving in England to have HDU conversions.
In 1945, USAF Air Materiel Command had also started a procurement campaign for a new strategic bomber, with updated requirements published in June 1947. Boeing was developing the B-52, which General LeMay took a personal interest in. SAC were also expecting delivery of new B-47 bombers in 1951. LeMay was concerned that then current AAR systems would not be much use for large aircraft AAR, where large quantities of fuel would need to be delivered quickly. He also though it would be difficult for bomber pilots to get a small probe into a small drogue, as in the (new) probe and drogue system, so he also took a personal interest in high volume AAR fuel systems.
At the same time American aircraft manufacturers knew of the commercial value of AAR, bear in mind that the B-47 and B-52 were Boeing aircraft and a Boeing engineer (Cliff Leisy) had accompanied Doolittle to observe AAR in the UK; Boeing were in financial difficulty and their new bombers did not have the range the Air Force wanted. In November 1947; SAC and Air Materiel Command (the chiefs of which were Gen. LeMay and Gen. Carroll, who had recently visited FRL), dispatched a small group of USAF officers to work with Boeing, to develop an AAR system that would be more suitable for SAC’s needs than Cobham’s hoses, and that would be American. The Boeing team was led by Brig. Gen. Clarence S. Irvine (SAC), Brig. Gen. Mark E. Bradley (Air Material Command), and Cliff Leisy (The Boeing Company). On May 26, 1948 Air Materiel Command wrote to Boeing to hurry them along, stressing how important it was to get a new system into service. Developed in secret, a little over a year later the Boeing product was ready, it was revealed to the world October 19, 1949.
(On side-note Cliff Leisy sketched the first drawings of the boom system during discussions in Wichita. His first idea was to attach a telescopic pipe, 28 feet when retracted and 48 feet when extended, extending up out of the nose of the tanker.)
The immediate effects of Boeing revealing their ‘flying boom’ included:
FRL no longer held a worldwide monopoly on AAR systems.
The US Armed Forces now had 2 systems to choose from, one American made, one British.
A high volume AAR fuel delivery system would be available for the B-47 and B-52 bombers when they entered service.
Potentially, receiver pilots would need less training in close formation manouevering, since a ‘boom operator’ in the tanker would complete the contact.
US Government regulations dictated that Cobham had to either sell the manufacturing rights for his probe and drogue system to the US Government or arrange for manufacturing in the US. He set-up Flight Refueling Inc in the USA but later sold the rights anyway – as a compromise for the cost and time overruns encountered during the fixed-price contract for USAF aircraft modifications.
In 1950 FRL was completing a contract to modify B-29s to HDU tankers and F-84 Thunderjets into probe-equipped receivers. After conversions were completed it was possible for the single-seat fighters to fly non-stop across the North Atlantic, so they did. Previous, unrefuelled, movements of fighters had taken upwards of 10 days; the refuelled crossing took a little over 10 hours. It had become possible to move large numbers of jet fighter aircraft between Europe and the USA quickly, and at short-notice.
Boeing also began modifying B-29 into boom tankers in 1950.
AAR was at a crossroads. The Boeing flying boom, ideally suited to large fuel transfers to jet propelled bombers, was Strategic Air Command’s (and General LeMay’s) preffered system. Whereas the Flight Refuelling probe and drogue system was better suited to the smaller, more agile fighters of Tactical Air Command and the US Navy.
North Korea was not a proponent of AAR but, in an act of agression that would thrust AAR to the forefront of Air Power Projection, invaded South Korea, on June 25, 1950. Tactical Air Command deployed F–80s and F–84Es to Japan and, in 1951, Col. Harry Dorris flew his probe equipped F-80 from Japan to Korea, attacked 5 targets and then flew home again. Along the way he stayed airborne for 14 hours, thanks to 7 AAR brackets. He recorded the world’s first ever combat mission to use AAR and set a new Jet fighter endurance recort too. The Chiefs of Tactical Air Command put their faith in the probe and drogue system, it suited their fighters and proved its worth over Korea.
The US Navy introduced probe and drogue AAR systems for their new, jet powered, carrier-borne fighters; the Grumman Panther and McDonnell Banshee, in 1952. The Navy had faced some problems with putting jets on aircraft carriers, including the longer take-off runs they needed compared to propellor aircraft. The introduction of the steam catapult and angled decks helped and the use of AAR meant that take-off weights could be lowered. The fighters could take-off with smaller fuel loads and a tanker loitering over the boat could refuel waves of returning aircraft while they waited for their turn to land. It was impractical to put a large, boom equipped tanker on the carrier though, so the choice for the Navy was fairly simple. Probes and drogues were the order of the day and the first carrier-borne tanker deployed on the USS Midway in 1953.
SAC, on the other hand, and General LeMay in particular, were still not fans of the British system.
So, in February 1953, the USAF conducted a ‘fly-off’ between the probe and drogue and the flying boom. Various combinations of tankers and receivers flew so that pilots and engineers could compare the two systems. Nobody was surprised with the results. The fighter guys preferred the probe and drogue, the bomber chaps the Boom. The trials merely proved what everybody already knew. Since then little has changed; the US Navy still use the probe and drogue and the Air Force use the boom The fact that General LeMay owned most of the Air Forces’ tankers and saw the flying boom as his pet project may well have steered the DoD towards the situation today.
(As already posted, in September 1956 the US Navy R3Y-2 Tradewind tanker demonstrated the ability to simultaneously refuel 4 receivers.)
General LeMay was appointed Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force in July 1957 and then Chief of Staff in 1961. Considering he was such a big supporter of the Boeing Flying Boom, rather than the probe and drogue, it’s hardly surprising that on July 14, 1958, USAF HQ declared that the Flying Boom would be the AAR standard from then on. The issues of incompatability with probe equipped fighters were addressed with Boeing’s Boom Drogue Adaptor (BDA) in 1959.
The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker first flew on August 31, 1956. It was the first all-jet powered tanker and was initially equipped for boom tanking only. The aircraft was declared operational on June 28, 1957 and a total of 732 were eventually delivered; they are expected to be replaced in 2020. Interestingly enough, 744 Boeing B-52s were built, almost one-for-one with KC-135s. Even more interesting is that the USAF only realized in 1954 that the B-52 needed a new, jet tanker. The KC-97s in service didn’t carry enough fuel for the bomber, which also had to descend from its cruising altitude to rendezvous with the propeller-driven tanker. Boeing, however, had started development of a new jet tanker shortly after the B-52’s maiden flight, which took place in April 1952. In May 1952 they used about $16 Million of their own money and began work, at risk, on a prototype. With only one month between the B-52’s first flight and the decision to start the development of a new tanker there may have been some ‘cause and effect’ going on. However, the aircraft, the Boeing 367-80, which became known as the ‘Dash-80’, was also a transport concept and went on to be developed into both the Boeing 707 and the KC-135.
(The KC-135 and the Boeing 707 are less similar to each other than humans are to chimpanzees. Where we might be up to 95% similar in our genetic make-up to chimps, the KC-135 is only 22% similar to the 707 at the manufacturing level. The 707’s fueslage is 4 inches wider than the KC-135s, which makes the rest of the aircraft different too.)
In early March 1954 General LeMay visited the Boeing plant to see the development of the Dash-80 for himself and he commented that the aircraft was "Quite an airplane. A versatile baby that really ought to make the British look up." You could be forgiven for thinking he might have been considering the aircraft’s versatility for AAR as well as Air Transport. Around about the time the Boeing prototype first flew, in the summer of 1954, the USAF announced a requirement to purchase new jet tankers. Boeing, Douglas, Convair, Fairchild, Lockheed, and Martin were invited to submit tenders and Douglas, Lockheed, Convair and Boeing were interested. Convair didn’t submit a proposal, but Lockheed, Douglas and Boeing did. The result was that Lockheeds’ L-193 “Global Jet Transport” aircraft won the contract; the Douglas DC-8 came a close second and the Boeing prototype came a poor third. Douglas were convinced that 2 aircraft would be selected by the USAF, for redundancy, and expected an order; Lockheed began building its prototype and Boeing might have been left out in the cold.
Except that, on August 3, 1954, before the winner of the competition had actually been announced, the USAF ordered 29 jet tankers from Boeing as an ‘interim measure’. Two weeks later they ordered 88 more. It’s worth remembering at this point that General LeMay was still Chief of Strategic Air Command and Boeing had designed the flying boom. Therefore it could be argued that it’s no surprise that Boeing was awarded a contract outside of a formal acquisition process. Later, in February 1955, Harold Talbott (then Secretary of the Air Force) announced 2 things in one speech: that Lockheed had won the competition and that another 169 Boeing tankers were being bought as a further ‘interim measure’.
Donald Douglas (of the Douglas Aircraft Company) protested to the government, suggesting that Boeing had been selected for the contract even before the competing companies had submitted their proposals.
In a string of events not entirely dissimilar to those of the recent KC-X acquisition program, Boeing won in the end; the Lockheed contract was cancelled and the Douglas protest was unsuccessful.
The main reason was because Gen Curtiss LeMay didn't like his aircraft using a British system.
The full story, afaik follows:
It started with the Berlin airlift and the Cold War...
From June 20, 1948 the Soviet Union stopped all Allied land and sea traffic from getting into, or out of, Western Berlin in an attempt to take control of the city. Lieutenant General Curtiss LeMay was Commander United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and was consulted before Allied Forces commenced the Berlin Airlift; supplies were flown into West Berlin. Flight Refuelling Limited (FRL - Sir Alan Cobham's company) was the first private contractor to become involved in the effort and provided a total of 12 Lancastrian tankers to deliver aviation fuel, usually to RAF Wunstorf. The blockade ended on May 12, 1949, but on October 19, 1948, LeMay returned to the US to take over as Commander Strategic Air Command (SAC), which had been formed just 7 months earlier, on March 21, 1946. On September 18, 1947 the United States Army Air Forces transformed into the United States Air Force (USAF).
The RAF in the UK decided that there was no future in AAR, but the USAF became imbroiled in a battle with the US Navy over who should carry the nation’s nuclear deterrent. LeMay’s role became to ensure that the USAF would be the military branch most capable of delievering Nuclear weapons to any target on the planet, but all he had available to do that was a handful of piston engined B-29s.
General Carl Spaatz (who had been the captain of the famous ‘Question Mark’ aircraft when he was a Major), became the first Chief of Staff of the USAF in September 1947 and decided that AAR was the ‘enabler’ that would prove the Air Force more capable than the Navy. He despatched a group of senior officers led by Jimmy Doolittle (who was an employee of the Shell Oil company before the war), who was accompanied by Boeing engineer Cliff Leisy, to visit Sir Alan Cobham and FRL in England. Doolittle, who had been a fan of AAR since before the war, returned to the US with a positive report, 2 sets of AAR equipment and a guarantee of technical support from FRL.
Leisy took the AAR systems to Boeing’s plant in Wichita, Kansas, where they were used to modify B-29 Superfortresses. An initial order of 40 units was placed, which was later upped to 100. Cobham was in the money, since he had bought all the “Tiger Force” systems (600 of which were ordered to provide force extension AAR for attacks on Japan) back from the British Air Ministry at scrap-metal prices. By the end of 1948 the USAF had 2 active AAR Squadrons, equipped with the modified aircraft, designated Boeing KB-29M tankers. The USAF demonstrated their new capability by performing a practice nuclear strike exercise on Hawaii.
From February 26, 1949 to March 2, 1949 the grappling system AAR devices of the KB-29Ms were also used to refuel ‘Lucky Lady II’, a B-50A Superfortress that had been modified as a receiver, when she completed the first ever circumnavigation of the globe without landing (Commanded by Capt. James C. Gallagher with a crew of 14). After the flight LeMay announced to the world that the USAF could now “deliver an atomic bomb to anywhere in the world that requires an atomic bomb”. An order for a new aircraft carrier for the Navy was cancelled and new bombers were instead ordered for the Air Force.
There were still problems with the actual AAR system; they hadn’t evolved much since Alexander Seversky’s original concept of 1917. 30 years of development had gone into aircraft technology and jet aircraft were on the production line. The Gloster Meteor, for example, had been in service with the RAF since June 1944. These new jet propelled aircraft had closed canopies and, by 1946, pressurized cockpits. So the pilots couldn’t open the canopies in flight and, even if they could, there was no crewman to control the AAR system. Unknown to Cobham and FRL, Boeing started research into a new system, that would suit high-speed, high-altitude, single-seat fighter refuelling.
Sir Alan Cobham was asked by Generals from the USAF if he had anything in the works for refuelling high performance aircraft he didn't, but pretended that he did. He, and his engineers, conceived, manufactured and tested the probe and drogue system in just 4 months. The ‘probe and drogue’ system was ready for demonstration in April 1949. A Lancaster was fiited with a Hose Drum Unit (HDU) and a Gloster Meteor was fitted with a probe. General Franklin Carroll, director of research and development at USAF Air Materiel Command viewed the demonstrations and, on his reccommendation, 4 Boeing B-29s and 2 Republic F-84 Thunderjets were sent to the UK for probe and drogue conversion. In August 1949 a Lancaster tanker refuelled a Meteor receiver that set the world Jet aircraft endurance record, of 12 hours and 3 minutes. Before the end of the year more USAF B-29s were arriving in England to have HDU conversions.
In 1945, USAF Air Materiel Command had also started a procurement campaign for a new strategic bomber, with updated requirements published in June 1947. Boeing was developing the B-52, which General LeMay took a personal interest in. SAC were also expecting delivery of new B-47 bombers in 1951. LeMay was concerned that then current AAR systems would not be much use for large aircraft AAR, where large quantities of fuel would need to be delivered quickly. He also though it would be difficult for bomber pilots to get a small probe into a small drogue, as in the (new) probe and drogue system, so he also took a personal interest in high volume AAR fuel systems.
At the same time American aircraft manufacturers knew of the commercial value of AAR, bear in mind that the B-47 and B-52 were Boeing aircraft and a Boeing engineer (Cliff Leisy) had accompanied Doolittle to observe AAR in the UK; Boeing were in financial difficulty and their new bombers did not have the range the Air Force wanted. In November 1947; SAC and Air Materiel Command (the chiefs of which were Gen. LeMay and Gen. Carroll, who had recently visited FRL), dispatched a small group of USAF officers to work with Boeing, to develop an AAR system that would be more suitable for SAC’s needs than Cobham’s hoses, and that would be American. The Boeing team was led by Brig. Gen. Clarence S. Irvine (SAC), Brig. Gen. Mark E. Bradley (Air Material Command), and Cliff Leisy (The Boeing Company). On May 26, 1948 Air Materiel Command wrote to Boeing to hurry them along, stressing how important it was to get a new system into service. Developed in secret, a little over a year later the Boeing product was ready, it was revealed to the world October 19, 1949.
(On side-note Cliff Leisy sketched the first drawings of the boom system during discussions in Wichita. His first idea was to attach a telescopic pipe, 28 feet when retracted and 48 feet when extended, extending up out of the nose of the tanker.)
The immediate effects of Boeing revealing their ‘flying boom’ included:
FRL no longer held a worldwide monopoly on AAR systems.
The US Armed Forces now had 2 systems to choose from, one American made, one British.
A high volume AAR fuel delivery system would be available for the B-47 and B-52 bombers when they entered service.
Potentially, receiver pilots would need less training in close formation manouevering, since a ‘boom operator’ in the tanker would complete the contact.
US Government regulations dictated that Cobham had to either sell the manufacturing rights for his probe and drogue system to the US Government or arrange for manufacturing in the US. He set-up Flight Refueling Inc in the USA but later sold the rights anyway – as a compromise for the cost and time overruns encountered during the fixed-price contract for USAF aircraft modifications.
In 1950 FRL was completing a contract to modify B-29s to HDU tankers and F-84 Thunderjets into probe-equipped receivers. After conversions were completed it was possible for the single-seat fighters to fly non-stop across the North Atlantic, so they did. Previous, unrefuelled, movements of fighters had taken upwards of 10 days; the refuelled crossing took a little over 10 hours. It had become possible to move large numbers of jet fighter aircraft between Europe and the USA quickly, and at short-notice.
Boeing also began modifying B-29 into boom tankers in 1950.
AAR was at a crossroads. The Boeing flying boom, ideally suited to large fuel transfers to jet propelled bombers, was Strategic Air Command’s (and General LeMay’s) preffered system. Whereas the Flight Refuelling probe and drogue system was better suited to the smaller, more agile fighters of Tactical Air Command and the US Navy.
North Korea was not a proponent of AAR but, in an act of agression that would thrust AAR to the forefront of Air Power Projection, invaded South Korea, on June 25, 1950. Tactical Air Command deployed F–80s and F–84Es to Japan and, in 1951, Col. Harry Dorris flew his probe equipped F-80 from Japan to Korea, attacked 5 targets and then flew home again. Along the way he stayed airborne for 14 hours, thanks to 7 AAR brackets. He recorded the world’s first ever combat mission to use AAR and set a new Jet fighter endurance recort too. The Chiefs of Tactical Air Command put their faith in the probe and drogue system, it suited their fighters and proved its worth over Korea.
The US Navy introduced probe and drogue AAR systems for their new, jet powered, carrier-borne fighters; the Grumman Panther and McDonnell Banshee, in 1952. The Navy had faced some problems with putting jets on aircraft carriers, including the longer take-off runs they needed compared to propellor aircraft. The introduction of the steam catapult and angled decks helped and the use of AAR meant that take-off weights could be lowered. The fighters could take-off with smaller fuel loads and a tanker loitering over the boat could refuel waves of returning aircraft while they waited for their turn to land. It was impractical to put a large, boom equipped tanker on the carrier though, so the choice for the Navy was fairly simple. Probes and drogues were the order of the day and the first carrier-borne tanker deployed on the USS Midway in 1953.
SAC, on the other hand, and General LeMay in particular, were still not fans of the British system.
So, in February 1953, the USAF conducted a ‘fly-off’ between the probe and drogue and the flying boom. Various combinations of tankers and receivers flew so that pilots and engineers could compare the two systems. Nobody was surprised with the results. The fighter guys preferred the probe and drogue, the bomber chaps the Boom. The trials merely proved what everybody already knew. Since then little has changed; the US Navy still use the probe and drogue and the Air Force use the boom The fact that General LeMay owned most of the Air Forces’ tankers and saw the flying boom as his pet project may well have steered the DoD towards the situation today.
(As already posted, in September 1956 the US Navy R3Y-2 Tradewind tanker demonstrated the ability to simultaneously refuel 4 receivers.)
General LeMay was appointed Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force in July 1957 and then Chief of Staff in 1961. Considering he was such a big supporter of the Boeing Flying Boom, rather than the probe and drogue, it’s hardly surprising that on July 14, 1958, USAF HQ declared that the Flying Boom would be the AAR standard from then on. The issues of incompatability with probe equipped fighters were addressed with Boeing’s Boom Drogue Adaptor (BDA) in 1959.
The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker first flew on August 31, 1956. It was the first all-jet powered tanker and was initially equipped for boom tanking only. The aircraft was declared operational on June 28, 1957 and a total of 732 were eventually delivered; they are expected to be replaced in 2020. Interestingly enough, 744 Boeing B-52s were built, almost one-for-one with KC-135s. Even more interesting is that the USAF only realized in 1954 that the B-52 needed a new, jet tanker. The KC-97s in service didn’t carry enough fuel for the bomber, which also had to descend from its cruising altitude to rendezvous with the propeller-driven tanker. Boeing, however, had started development of a new jet tanker shortly after the B-52’s maiden flight, which took place in April 1952. In May 1952 they used about $16 Million of their own money and began work, at risk, on a prototype. With only one month between the B-52’s first flight and the decision to start the development of a new tanker there may have been some ‘cause and effect’ going on. However, the aircraft, the Boeing 367-80, which became known as the ‘Dash-80’, was also a transport concept and went on to be developed into both the Boeing 707 and the KC-135.
(The KC-135 and the Boeing 707 are less similar to each other than humans are to chimpanzees. Where we might be up to 95% similar in our genetic make-up to chimps, the KC-135 is only 22% similar to the 707 at the manufacturing level. The 707’s fueslage is 4 inches wider than the KC-135s, which makes the rest of the aircraft different too.)
In early March 1954 General LeMay visited the Boeing plant to see the development of the Dash-80 for himself and he commented that the aircraft was "Quite an airplane. A versatile baby that really ought to make the British look up." You could be forgiven for thinking he might have been considering the aircraft’s versatility for AAR as well as Air Transport. Around about the time the Boeing prototype first flew, in the summer of 1954, the USAF announced a requirement to purchase new jet tankers. Boeing, Douglas, Convair, Fairchild, Lockheed, and Martin were invited to submit tenders and Douglas, Lockheed, Convair and Boeing were interested. Convair didn’t submit a proposal, but Lockheed, Douglas and Boeing did. The result was that Lockheeds’ L-193 “Global Jet Transport” aircraft won the contract; the Douglas DC-8 came a close second and the Boeing prototype came a poor third. Douglas were convinced that 2 aircraft would be selected by the USAF, for redundancy, and expected an order; Lockheed began building its prototype and Boeing might have been left out in the cold.
Except that, on August 3, 1954, before the winner of the competition had actually been announced, the USAF ordered 29 jet tankers from Boeing as an ‘interim measure’. Two weeks later they ordered 88 more. It’s worth remembering at this point that General LeMay was still Chief of Strategic Air Command and Boeing had designed the flying boom. Therefore it could be argued that it’s no surprise that Boeing was awarded a contract outside of a formal acquisition process. Later, in February 1955, Harold Talbott (then Secretary of the Air Force) announced 2 things in one speech: that Lockheed had won the competition and that another 169 Boeing tankers were being bought as a further ‘interim measure’.
Donald Douglas (of the Douglas Aircraft Company) protested to the government, suggesting that Boeing had been selected for the contract even before the competing companies had submitted their proposals.
In a string of events not entirely dissimilar to those of the recent KC-X acquisition program, Boeing won in the end; the Lockheed contract was cancelled and the Douglas protest was unsuccessful.
D-IFF ident,
Very interesting - thanks for taking the time to post that. Gen Le May was certainly a man who knew how to make thinks happen the way he wanted them.
I had never heard of the Lockheed L-193 so I looked it up - similar layout to a VC-10 but years earlier:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...op_view%29.gif
Very interesting - thanks for taking the time to post that. Gen Le May was certainly a man who knew how to make thinks happen the way he wanted them.
I had never heard of the Lockheed L-193 so I looked it up - similar layout to a VC-10 but years earlier:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...op_view%29.gif
I've refuelled 3 Mirage 2000s behind a Victor - but that wasn't official.
Green Knight - thanks for the pics - very impressive.
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Gents,
At the risk of having a 'spotter' raise his head above the parapet, and having read this thread with interest I thought you guys might find these pics interesting, shot Tuesday of last week at Mildenhall.
It's one of the very few USAF KC-135's fitted with the P & D pods in addition to the boom recovering after a mishap with a receiver. The basket is completely gone and they could not pull the hose in. I believe he was supporting operations around Iceland for the air meet up there.
Gary
At the risk of having a 'spotter' raise his head above the parapet, and having read this thread with interest I thought you guys might find these pics interesting, shot Tuesday of last week at Mildenhall.
It's one of the very few USAF KC-135's fitted with the P & D pods in addition to the boom recovering after a mishap with a receiver. The basket is completely gone and they could not pull the hose in. I believe he was supporting operations around Iceland for the air meet up there.
Gary
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Originally Posted by D-IFF_ident
The result was that Lockheeds’ L-193 “Global Jet Transport” aircraft won the contract; the Douglas DC-8 came a close second and the Boeing prototype came a poor third.
I ask because everything I have found on the Lockheed Tanker entry says it was the CL-291 for the initial competition and the CL-321 for the final one.
I got the info and images below from http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/foru...ic,1348.0.html.
That references the following article, from a now-defunct website (or at least the article link no longer works). http://www.americanheritage.com/arti...004_4_10.shtml
The secretprojects thread also references where they got the images below, which is a French forum: forum.avionslegendaires.net ? Consulter le sujet - EnigmCOLD Rainbow double, n°120 & n°120bis => Lockheed KC-X
As an aside, I can see the genesis of the C-141 in the CL-291, can't you?
KC-135 engines: 4xJT3 (civilian J57, 10,000 lb.s.t. [later 12,000-14,000 with water injection, then 17,000 lb.s.t. TF33 {turbofan J57} after 1960])
CL-291/321 engines: 4xJ75 (15,000-17,000 lb.s.t.).
KC-135:
Wingspan: 130 feet, 10 inches (39.88 meters)
Length: 136 feet, 3 inches (41.53 meters)
Height: 41 feet, 8 inches (12.7 meters)
Gross weight 297,000 lb
CL-321-11:
Wingspan: 142 feet, 0 inches (43.28 meters)
Length: 147 feet, 4 inches (44.91 meters)
Height: 47 feet, 0 inches (14.33 meters)
Gross weight (CL-291-1) 361,000 lb
Gary - dont be in the least shy about coming on here - especially with really high quality pictures like that. There are far too many pompous professionals who are sniffy about "spotters". We all share a common interest in aircraft so as far as I am concerned you can keep your head above the parapet!
Last edited by Tankertrashnav; 16th Feb 2014 at 16:47.
The drogue and receptacle will no doubt be on the probe of the fighter which did the damage. The KC135 WARP (Wing Air Refuelling Pod) modification isn't a huge success. The pod has to be way out on the wing-tip to avoid the numbers 1 and 4 engine and consequently the drogue sits close to the wingtip vortices. To get round the problem, they use vortex generators and a hose that's about 40ft longer than the usual MK32 Pod hose. Despite this, it's still a pig to tank from I gather.
Having said that, it's highly likely that this problem is down to a pod fault - a failed tensator spring I reckon. This would give a hard hose which would be likely to break the hose off the receptacle and because without the drag from the basket, it would wind in within a couple of seconds.
Having said that, it's highly likely that this problem is down to a pod fault - a failed tensator spring I reckon. This would give a hard hose which would be likely to break the hose off the receptacle and because without the drag from the basket, it would wind in within a couple of seconds.
