I would warrant it's a lot less than that of an F4 and we tanked them behind Albert.

We had no trouble with the Nimrod behind the C130. It may not have been ideal, but it was OK.

YS

IIRC only the 60 or so KC10s have a centreline hose. The boom on the KC135, and I assume any other boom tanker, can be fitted with a Boom Drogue Adapter. But if you are using a USAF tanker why not use the boom directly. The KC130 tankers have probe and drogue wing pods, so it would be a tad interesting refuelling a P8 from them.

Without searching for and reading the full article, I'm assuming there's more after that sentence. Otherwise I'd have to ask the author whether they think the role of the RAF AAR fleet is to only support other nations' aircraft.

That said, and I might well be imagining this, but I'm sure I once saw a video somewhere of a boom equipped aircraft that had been modified with a drogue element at the end of the boom for probe/drogue ops. Would that be a potential solution? We've spent so much on these damned Voyagers that we may as well spend a little more if it means we actually get the full capability from all our fleets.

You may likely be remembering a KC-135 with the boom drouge adaptor mentioned in the post before yours. This was basically bolting a drouge to the end of the boom allowing the tanker to pass fuel to probe equipped aircraft. Used quite a bit in the first gulf war when many US Navy and coalition probe equipped aircraft needed tankers. The boom could not be used as boom as we know it on the same mission, so not really a "solution". If you wanted to return to boom operations, you would have to land and remove the drouge.

Nicknamed the iron maiden, as the steel basket at the end of the hose was less forgiving than typical drougues.

It would be very beneficial to see the alternative receiver-type modification on Voyager. It "future proofs" the fleet and gives it utility with quite a lot of other countries that we might expect to assist. The problem is, in this climate, we can't afford to future proof anything really - it has to be needed now or very soon, with a robust BC to support it, or it gets no funding.

If we were to decide to buy a boom-type aircraft, I'm sure the mod would happen as a consequence. Who knows.

The A330 MRTT can be equipped with Boom, Wing Pods, Centreline hose and UARRSI all at the same time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EADS/N..._Grumman_KC-45

Indeed, D-IFF_ident, that should have been the standard fit for all A330 tankers....

Just had a Grizzly and a Fat Albert overfly Peterborough in a AAR type of formation.
The Albert was tucked in tight just behind the Grizzly.

What's a "Grizzly"? Surely you had an Albert tucked in behind an Atlas?? ;)

Ok an Atlas.
Looked like they were AAR, but they weren't.

Uffington - lots of pics of the Herc and Atlas here:

https://twitter.com/Seb_Lanc99

What's a "Grizzly"?

That was a close one since, inevitably, in service it would have been dubbed the "Grisly".
Better the " At las(t)".

The A400 was using a Grizzly callsign yesterday.


Edit - So was the C-130J! Doh!

Grizzly. Unofficial name for the A400. Same as Fat Albert/Albert for the Hercules.
Last time I saw a Grizzly over my house, Tom Cruise was strapped onto the outside!

[QUOTE=uffington sb;9371864]Grizzly. Unofficial name for the A400. Same as Fat Albert/Albert for the Hercules.
Last time I saw a Grizzly over my house, Tom Cruise was strapped onto the outside![/QUOTE

...........so we have a tanker that can't receive fuel, at least I see neither probe or a slipway on the RAF Voyagers. Seem to remember we had them, probes , on the Valiant, Victors, TriStars and VC10 tankers !

At least the Australians have got their act together ! Perhaps their interpretation of PFI is in the mark !

Ref earlier post. Whilst I cannot speak for AirTanker, TTSC never offered even the prospect of a buddy buddy capability. It certainly wasn't on the MOD wish list. In any case contrary to opposition claims, the 767 had more than enough fuel internally to deal with all the requirements scenarios.

And another thing, anyone remember the dick-dance with the Tristar probes?

How many times can you recall the TriStar probe being used in anger? I'd say "ZERO"!

The Kiwis refuelled a Tristar with an A4, I think. :)

Also this
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_2...%20Tristar.jpg

Actually it was a VC10K3 that prodded the Kiwi A4. To be sure!

Look at page 24 to see how much of the Air Mobility Force budget the KC30 costs. Add a boom to that and great expense
http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafbrizenorton...06618978CA.pdf

A Station Commander AND a Head of Establishment, both at Group Captain level? How much does THAT cost..

I remember what a Station Commander is, but wtf is a Head of Establishment?

S-D

Did I not read some where that there are now station commanders and force commanders on the same "station"

How much does it cost, well not very much. Two Group Captains at, say, 100K PA each, if that, is still FAR less than would be paid to just one individual in the private sector (and in very many areas in the public domain) with that amount of responsibility.

MOD have got Brize management on the cheap.

It seems more than reasonable to me, on such a large station as BZN , to have one GC running ops. and the other running Station "admin".

If, as I understand things, several previously Command or Group level functions are now found at Station level, it's not surprising that this would cause changes at the top of what I see is a £1.4bn full-cost operation.

I am, however, intrigued by another bit of p24, where it's stated that work is in hand "to give Defence access to an additional Voyager aircraft," an issue that appears to be linked to a desire to reduce charter expenditure. Other than remarking that this is by no means a new desire, as it came up often enough in the 1970s to my knowledge, are we to take it that this work seeks to increase the Voyager 'Core Fleet' to 10? And that it needs a contract amendment to use one of the 'surge' fleet in a situation short of war?

Not much really. Think span of control. Average Station circa 1200-1500 personnel = 1 gp capt. Brize, which has expanded dramatically, circa 3000 mil/civ personnel (maybe more now). At full capacity will have 7, or is it 8 (?), large squadrons and about 1/10 of the entire RAF. Doesn't seem unreasonable to have 2 gp capts for that. Just think of the OJAR load.

Force HQs, commanded by the 1* Force Commander (think AOs in old terminology AO Tornado, AO ISTAR, AO AT/AAR* etc) are supposed to be "Group Forward". Stn Cdr remains the Stn Cdr at gp capt rank and gets the big house. It followed the massive cock-up of trying to squeeze PTC into Air at HW and the resulting need to free up space at HW. As a casual observer some FHQs are working better than others.

* Interestingly the non-aircrew branches seem to have stuck to RAF tradition more than the aircrew as they have kept AO A6, AO A4, AO BM etc

I'd estimate that if you got rid of around 150 Gp Capts in one year, or 1 Gp Capt for 150 years, that would just about pay for one boom on one aircraft. :cool: