Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnews!cbnews!military From: jwm@wdl76.wdl.fac.com (Jon W Meyer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Air-to-air refueling Message-ID: <1990Nov21.221551.20314@cbnews.att.com> Date: 21 Nov 90 22:15:51 GMT References: <1990Nov20.021726.27228@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: LORAL Western Development Labs Lines: 37 Approved: military@att.att.com From: jwm@wdl76.wdl.fac.com (Jon W Meyer) shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) writes: >Henry Spencer (henry@zoo.toronto.edu) writes: >>I believe the USAF did cite difficulties with p/d as their original reason >>for going with f-b, but they were mostly minor problems likely to yield >There's nothing wrong with probe-drogue refuelling, but once you've >decided to use boom/receptacle and all your receiver aircraft have >receptacles, not probes, the question becomes moot. Just a nit, but the USAF uses both flying boom and probe & drouge refueling. While most fixed wing USAF aircraft (the air refuelable ones, that is) are set up for the boom, helecopters are refueled from HC-130s (that's right, HC not KC) using probe and drogue. There seems to be some incompatibility between the booms and the spinning things above the helecopters' fuselages. :-) >Also remember that the only thing the USAF and USN have ever agreed on >is that the Army shouldn't have fixed-wing aircraft. I don't know about that. I think they both agree that trying to land fighters on a piece of driftwood bobing along in the middle of the ocean is something only a lunatic, grasnted, a highly skilled lunatic, would attempt. :-) Jon ____________________________________________________________________________ Jon W. Meyer | "I'd travel 10,000 miles to smoke a camel" | Caption from the (unofficial) desert shield tee-shirt. | | "If, when the battle's over, your infantry does not love you, | you are a poor artillery man."