And there was I hoping that the tinfoil hate idiots, MSFS geeks and the like were confining themselves to endless pages of drivel about the cause of the B-747F accident at Bagram....:rolleyes:

Always easy to spot a timewaster on the Mil board - they refer to a woodworking tool rather than to an aircraft. They probably couldn't tell you the difference between an 'aircraft' or an 'aeroplane' either....:uhoh:

SASless, apart from multiple birdstrikes, I can think of another possible explanation, but am not going to post it here.

Then why mention it?

"The hatch just blew!"

Given where it was flying, I am trying to puzzle out how someone comes up with SAM/MANPAD as a factor.

It's a reach, eh? A long reach, even ...

The crew - RIP


Air Force names airmen killed in Kyrgyzstan KC-135 crash - Air Force - Stripes

PLEASE no-one post that sickly 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' clichéd crap....:(

The point I was trying to make, SASless, is that many of us might have our own ideas, but will NOT post them in a forum infested by people who are frankly not qualified to comment - and whose drivel merely diverts attention....:ugh:

SASless: Add to your inventory of possible causes, "Aft Cabin Pressure Bulkhead failure due to fatigue and corrosin".

Better get used to it BEagle. The word, usually preceded by an apostrophe, has been in use since the earliest days of heavy than air flight. Unless preceded by the apostrophe, the word in the days of old, meant "wing". Remember when you used to be a gay chap? Not any more though. Meanings change, and not necessarily for the better.

Epic thread drift! ;)

.....also an assumption................:)

Well, it is a rumour network..

KC135 Crash
 

I can't help but think of the similarities between this and the Nimrod crash. God bless all of those lost and those they leave behind.

Has the KC 135 fleet and variants been grounded?

Brilliant Question.....grounding the entire 135 fleet would do "What" to Combat Operations extant?

What do you think the chances of that happening are?

ZERO and even more Zero

KC 135 - B 707
 

Seems to be that some believe the B707 and the KC135 are one and the same. They both share the same genesis, the Boeing 367-80. The KC135 pre-dates the B707 by about 18 months, is a narrower and shorter airframe with different construction.

Apart from training flights the aircraft would have been predominately subjected to heavy weight take-offs and over time has been given significant engine upgrades. The type first entered service in around 1957, fifty-six years ago. The last production airframe was built in 1965 so the accident aircraft was at least
forty-eight years old.

Hopefully the cause will be determined and published, otherwise we learn nothing.

It uses the same basic airframe as the 700 series which means the floor is approx 15 inches narrower and so is the cabin shell.

Makes me very sad that good men and women go in harms way and their service is not appreciated by many.

Lest We Forget

Regards

Col

SASless Brilliant Question.....grounding the entire 135 fleet would do "What" to Combat Operations extant?

What do you think the chances of that happening are?


I would hope the risk owner has carefully balanced operational requirement with operating a platform with a potential fleet wide problem. If indeed the fleet is still flying it would indicate:

The operational need outweighed individuals risk.
The fault was understood and manageable.
A mixture of both.

Operational necessity precludes grounding the entire fleet.

Simple enough.

Even if they found something of interest/concern fleet-wide....they would have to do a phased program of inspections all the while meeting Operational requirements.

The Air Force could alter some demand by altering the way they operate but Combat Operations would have to continue even at some risk if need be.

The Tankers are not hauling blue collar folk on sunshine holidays....they have a mission that requires they be there to pass gas.

What mission is that exactly? Seems pretty irrelevant these days bearing in mind how long we have been fighting it and how little seems to have been achieved.

To answer the flight engineer question, there never was one in the KC. SAC generals weren't having enlisted crew members in the front end, period. And no flight engineer coming from maintenance was going to be commissioned. Boeing designed the cockpit so the pilot and co-pilot handled all the systems.

GF

No F/E
 

As a former F/E I have never understood why the F/E and/or L/M are any less entitled to hold a Commission. In my civvy employment in the role the F/E and F/O were on the same pay scale with the F/E often earning more than the F/O by dint of seniority increments.

A reverse side to this is why commission a FO ?

Once you answer that then you see why the 3rd man in the cockpit must hold a lower rank in a rank led environment. The pay scales then are secondary since they follow rank.

The civvies don't necessarily have the same dependence on pay scales following rank.

Rank in Cockpit
 

The Captain is the Captain regardless of rank. It is, however, a team environment with each having a role to play. My point is, what makes any member more or less deserving of a Commission?

Do the US share info if their ac (E3, C17, C139, CH47 etc) have a fleet wide problem? Is it a mandatory requirement or something that is written into a contract and therefore negotiable?

They are trying to raise funds for the families in this tragedy, please see


Shell 77 - CustomInk | Campaigns

I don't know if they do overseas though some of our US visitors may wish to know about it.

Vin Rouge: try not to mix the political hijinks with the day by day mission requirements to go out and refuel another aircraft. Your post is an insult to the people still in the field, though perhaps you didn't intend that.

It's not an insult, it's a statement of the bleeding obvious.

No, Vin Rouge, it's load of crap. At present, people are deployed doing what they are supposed to do. That is their mission. It's very clear to the men and women flying those missions each day. Whether the mission supports a political end you agree with, or is sensible (both points worth pondering in terms of the political military interface), is a completely different matter.

Not only do you know better, I suggest that you consider keeping that snarky political crap out of the discussion of this accident.

There are lots of politically themed threads for anyone to share points on the con and pro of what is going on in Central Asia. Many of us do, and provide varying points of view and opinions.

Within the context of this crew, they had a mission that day, to support the mission of the day, and give someone some gas as is their role. They didn't return. It could have happened to any of us on a given day in wartime, peace time, or whatever the in between is called.

Do the US share info if their ac (E3, C17, C139, CH47 etc) have a fleet wide problem? Is it a mandatory requirement or something that is written into a contract and therefore negotiable?

Tony, are you referring to the armed forces, or to the manufacturers?

You question is far too broad.

I mean the military types. KC 135 blows up mid air......will we be told why/ how it happened so we can be assured that our RC135s are safe to operate?

Well, you missed pilot/crew error...

...which is always a possibility, and judging from the debris distribution and the manner in which the parts impacted the ground (falling near vertically with almost no horizontal component) it would seem that you couldn't at this point rule out a high-altitude stall followed by overstress of the airframe during recovery attempts.

A view from the inside (flying KC-135s for 15 years).

The mishap aircraft was a bit over 100 miles downrange from Manas which means they would have reached and leveled off at cruise altitude. In a refueling mission this is often an action point. Upon leveling off we would check and confirm mission timing (to meet either original or revised timing for a standard point parallel or enroute type rendezvous or to support a simple arrival time for an anchor area "on station" period). And we would begin making decisions regarding where to move fuel quantities (if necessary) in anticipation of later refueling activity (i.e. draining fuel from the wing tanks to the aft body tank which both prepares it for offload and moves the aircraft's CG aft for more efficient cruise flight, and possibly draining some of the center wing fuel into the forward body tank which is sometimes done to counterbalance fuel drained into the aft body tank).

Here's how I could imagine pilot error entering the picture in this incident: Upon reaching cruise altitude the crew may have discovered they were running early for the rendezvous (either original or newly revised timing). So they might have pulled the throttles back to slow to endurance mach speed. If a distraction occurred in the cockpit at this point and the aircraft continued to slow a high-altitude stall could have taken place. If after leveling off they'd also begun draining fuel aft from wings to the aft body tank the situation could have developed rapidly.

Bit late on parade there, Greg. Our MOD apologists had pilot error down as the cause of the Mull of Kintyre Chinook tragedy within hours of it happening, later confirmed as Gross Pilot Negligence by the Board of Inquiry Reviewing Officers (sort of Generals). Seems they were all greatly in error, and that the aircraft was unairworthy and "positively dangerous". Who'd have thought, eh?

Have there been any reports at all on the true cause of this crash ?

Has anyone heard anything yet?

Greg,

How many incidents of just that happening in the past?

Cause here....

http://www.amc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123403437