Air Tanker
 

What is the global down turn in aviation doing to Air Tankers bottom line, how are they managing without any income from the unused assets of the RAF A330 fleet?

The MoD contract provides the Air Tanker consortium with a profit, any 3rd party revenue generated from the non core aircraft was even more profit. They will not go bust during the downturn if that’s what you’re wondering.

They have furloughed some folks I believe.

I know that many are working from home but I haven’t heard of any furloughs to date. I shall quietly enquire...

I stand corrected! - about 70 have been furloughed.

According to other forums, Voyagers have been up almost every day for replenishment of aircraft called out on QRAs.

And they made a run down to the Falklands in record time: https://www.airtanker.co.uk/media/ne...-flight-record

Impressive; but intrigued why they never did this before, does it impose additional weight limits, pax numbers etc?

Because previously, other commercial competitors have never had the excess capacity to offer the direct MPN option to the U.K. Government! This may be Air Tanker proving a point. And yes, limited pax, but not many travelling These days anyway.

What did the mod to the aircraft involve?

Tanks?

Probably the fact that the only personnel moves are those that are essential, therefore not as many people and associated luggage, thus more available space for fuel on a lighter aircraft load.

According to the article the mod was provision of proper crew rest facilities to allow the 2 crews to operate the route direct between them.

I would be interested to hear what payload the ac managed.

bigger galley? 😉

Hmmm, interesting. More available space for fuel, where? Fill a few empty seats with some jerrycans?

“Space” for fuel was badly worded, a reduction in passengers, luggage, cargo allows that weight saving to be used for fuel, using the existing tanks. No additional fuel tanks are required, it just means you can actually fill them up to full and the result is you can achieve MPN in one flight.

No more fuel. If you recall not too long ago, a Voyager flew direct to Buenos Aires. The limitation is crew duty, and the provision of crew rest facilities has enabled carriage of additional crew members to legally provide extra duty time.

Where would the rest facilities be placed. I know on BA dreamliners there are 2 crew rest areas. 1 just behind the cockpit above the galley and 1 in the fin area for cabin crew.

Were these A330 fitted similarly?

There are least two crew rest options for the A330-200.
A flight crew rest module from Collins Aerospace that fits behind the flight deck.
A lower deck combined Flight and Cabin crew rest module that occupies forward hold space.

Didn’t BA operate a few non stop charters to / from the Falklands using the 747 ?

Was the previous record held by a 10 Sqn VC10 and did Geoff Barrell do the AAR brackets for them? He was one of the best at the pilot's sport of Kings.

I could be wrong, I often am, but were they non-stop? I think they were operated before the arrival of the 747-400 and I suspect UK-FI non stop in a 747-200 would have been "tight"..


As for these days of course it as all changed - the modern big twins are often routinely operating sectors of the sort of length needed to get from the UK to the Falklands, but you need to make sure, as has been stated, that the crew rest has been sorted out...

I vaguely remember a small no of 747SPs routing direct to/from the FI (on a contract for an oil exploration co). I am pretty sure that the BA 747s routed via ASI.

ASI had a higher manning level back then, so would have needed support in any case.

I'm pretty certain that the 747 (including the Virgin Atlantic aircraft) stopped at ASI?

Oh the joys of the Rockape MPA arrival brief: "The Argies might come again! They might come by sea...they might come by air or by.....??"

(Voice from the back) "Train?"

RAF Bruggen Regt Rapier Sqn noticeboard

" Volunteers required for a road convoy to the Falkland Islands. Please add names"

They got quite a list of volunteers lol

1. SAC Nutloose

See here: https://www.vc10.net/Memories/Recordsetting.html
Sqn Ldr Barrell (TTF) was on XR806 for the non-stop flights.

When we first started receiver training for Sqn captains on 101 Sqn, I made a VHS recording with Geoff of a complete instructional session. The camera was at the LHS pilot's eye position (whilst the trainee ducked out of the way!).

Geoff did the whole thing in 1 take! Even the 'zone of fear'! No editing needed - it was a masterly demonstration of prodding as well as flight instruction.

(Sadly, someone later stole the tape. Probably the same little scrote who stole a processor chip from the sqn computer, a number of memorabilia items from the crew room and the 4 1/144 scale VC10K models we used for teaching on the VC10 Trg Flt. Little sod was eventually caught red handed and I later saw him being driven away in a black Omega between 2 rather large RAFP investigators. I gather he subsequently enjoyed a spell at HM's Essex holiday camp...…)