USN active AAR Drogue
 

No way! That'll take all the fun out of taking a flying f@ck at a rolling doughnut, or pushing wet spaghetti up a cat's arse....shame!

A solution to a non-existent problem....:rolleyes:

Except, perhaps, in the case of an unmanned CAV refuelling from an unmanned UAV.

One USN F-18 had enough trouble in the Middle East that forced him to land ashore rather than back at the carrier, think he lost his wings, certainly stood down, should be a thread here on the event.

“A solution to a non-existent problem”
The Mirage IV had or tested an ‘IFR’ AAR system.This might have involved the crew following a FD command, but that’s not very far from autopilot coupled - manned or unmanned aircraft.

Hi, I, and most AAR qualified pilots, routinely conducted "IFR" AAR and Night lights-out as well. Strikes me that fully Auto AAR would be quite a big ask without some major equipment change. :)

OAP

You probably need to explain BEags, otherwise that looks like a really dumb response.

Anything that makes a challenging regime less challenging must be a good move:

- Receivers and givers can expand their working envelope
- Multi-ship receivers can better harmonise their 'leaving fuel' with a quicker cycle through available baskets
- Easier contacts in turbulent conditions
- Lower risk of drogue / probe / aircraft damage
- Enabling AAR with degraded flight control modes for the receiver
- Enabling AAR across the speed range with just 1 basket type (ie the end of high and low speed baskets)

In the real world anyone can have a bad day and it only takes 1 aircraft to baulk the timeline for all the other receivers waiting on the wing.

To baulk the timeline
 

You probably need to explain "to baulk the timeline" :rolleyes:

Couldn't resist. Tried.

Haven't Bristol Uni been working on something similar for years...?

not a problem isolated to the USN.

plenty of other nations fighters have had dramas requiring diverts either during training (less impact) or during ops when they either haven’t got in or damaged either themselves (AOA probes or AAR probe) or the basket.

not sure what Beagle is on about... yep in benign conditions by day at FL150 it’s not a problem. At night, IMC and turbulence I’ll take some clever tech to make things easier thanks very much. I doubt you will find many other drivers who think differently. JTO covered the rest of it...

Are you selling this? Points in turn:
The envelope for FJ on a decent tanker pretty much included everything upto the point where the aircraft were unable to station keep.
Equalising OFF fuel state can be achieved anyway. Quicker cycle would need to be proven.
Easier contacts in turb-let's see it.
Again, lower risk-to be proven.
AAR with degraded flight controls. Well, very much presumes that the basket/boom stabilisation can be an advantage here? I can envisage that some aerodynamic "damping" of basket oscillation might help but, if the basket was to actually fly a modified path in the airflow, it would probably take fully servicable flight controls to match it. This leads to the point that auto AAR might need the linking of control laws between the objects that are formating.
Speed dependent baskets went out with the introduction of the variable speed capable Mk17T HDU. Don't tell me that capability has been given away? :p

Additionally, part of the problem is the unpredictable whip, whirl and snake of the hose in rough air. Can't wait to see the complexity of the system that can manage that. If the "stabilisation" achieved is just of a minor nature, I can't see it being worthwhile.
Oh yes, here is a point. How about the total loss of AAR capability when the "smart" basket goes U/S? How about it being able to manage with jousting damage? I have done considerable Operational AAR with damaged baskets and not had one go totally unusable. How is the "smart" basket going to cope with being raped etc?

Of course, if the development of UAV AAR shows genuine capability improvements, it might be worth consideration.
Cheers

OAP

No, not selling it but did get exposure to some of the US funded flight test efforts. The humble idea was to move away from a smart aircraft towing a dumb basket for a smart aircraft - back then there was no intent to have a system that coupled with the receiver.

The idea was simple - the basket and hose flies in accordance with regular physics / flight dynamics, with any perturbations compensated for by either the receiver pilot, HDU or not at all. Back then the idea was for the tanker, HDU and basket to talk to each other so that an actively controllable basket would remain in a near-perfect position relative to the host platform. Whip, whirl and snake may not be predictable for humans but the idea with an active basket is to prevent, ameliorate or recover from such unpleasant behaviour as well as compensate for receiver bow-waves, rotor downwash, aerodynamic capture, thrust lines et al.

Future AAR requirements include every platform imaginable and the relatively expansive FJ clearances do not apply to other types when things like disc clearance vs angle-of-dangle come into play, or the additional challenges with unmanned platforms, or very light platforms or mixed-mode platforms beyond the M/CV-22 technology.

I take your point that another active system adds a potential failure point but HDUs can and do fail now with little or no reversion capability. On my first type the odd brush with the basket was just one of those things and rarely caused any issue for the Tornado. Things have moved on though and a brush with the basket on an F-35 can be shockingly expensive and beyond the means of the ship to repair.

I only did a mere 20 years of AAR. First F-4 vs Victor, Vulcan, KC-10 and KC-135 BDA :yuk:, then VC10K / VC10 both as tanker and receiver vs. VC10K / TriStar.

In that brief time, I can only recall 3 events in peace and war which were risky:

1. A BZN station commander who thought that his rank counted for more than his skill.
2. A FAF Mirage pilot who understood neither R/T, SOPs nor signal lights.
3. A GAF Tornado ECR pilot who, as it turned out, was the sqn boss and hadn't attended the brief.

Although in GW1 there was some d*ckhead USAF F-16 pilot who couldn't understand why he couldn't refuel from a VC10K...

Everyone knows...

In all that time you never saw someone bingo out because they were unable to take fuel in turb? or damage a probe? Or damage the basket?

I have been on the wing of a tanker and seen my wingman damage his aircraft to the point they have gone home from an op sortie. On this occasion Technique was part of the issue, however conditions were very poor - would an active basket have helped? From looking at the video it probably would have....

I know first hand of a bunch of others who have been unable to refuel or have damaged their aircraft requiring either a divert or RTB. It is not a unique experience. I’ve also seen baskets mangled by other formations, resulting in a 2 hose tanker becoming one hose, taking longer to cycle through.

In any of the above situations there is a net loss in capability.

And then there was the Italian Air Force six-ship of Tornados on night one of ODS, of which only one was able to successfully refuel due to the atrocious turbulence. I suspect that this would have helped greatly.

Careful Ewan, you may upset those who think probe & drogue should remain as difficult as possible.

Seems surprising that it has not been done a while ago.

I'd have thought some sort of a offset virtual basket in the HUD would be in use these days

So you only need to look into the HUD - steer to a virtual basket directly infront of you and , hey presto - off to the side the real probe is sticking in the real basket

… surprising that it has not been done a while ago.
Shouldn't the objective be to stabilise the basket with respect to the receiver, not the tanker, real world, etc.
That could be a challenging task for real time computation of the aerodynamic relative positions between tanker and receiver, and the basket, requiring two way data link.