Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bellcore!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Air-to-air refueling
Message-ID: <1990Nov15.015456.4329@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Nov 90 01:54:56 GMT
References: <1990Nov14.011557.16297@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: bjohnson@athena.mit.edu (Brett W Johnson)
>I have a question on air-to-air refueling.  I read recently that
>modern jets/tankers have electronics (ie radar) designed to maintain
>proper seperation of the planes and nozzle alignment.  Can AA refueling
>be accomplished w/o this?  Using only the skill of the pilots & boom
>operator?

Yes.  In fact, most of the tankers in service don't have the fancy
electronics.  The USAF's older tankers are manually operated, as are
all non-USAF tankers.  (Basically only the USAF uses flying-boom
refuelling; everyone else, including the USN, uses probe-and-drogue
refuelling with a flexible hose connecting the two aircraft.)

>If so, why wasn't this technique used in WW2?  Or was it?

For some reason it took a long time for the idea to be taken seriously.
Although there were experiments and stunts earlier, the technique wasn't
really operational until the 1950s.
-- 
"I don't *want* to be normal!"         | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
"Not to worry."                        |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry