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