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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Refuelling technology
Message-ID: <1991Jun6.063141.5400@amd.com>
Date: 1 Jun 91 22:26:59 GMT
References: <1991May29.010413.4754@amd.com> <1991Jun1.012701.27684@amd.com>
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Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)


>From: wb9omc@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick)
>... knowledge of nasty turbulence generated
>by the big planes.  This has been given as a justification for using
>the flying boom to refuel fighters from something BIG like a KC135
>or a KC10 Extender...

However, a recent AW&ST (reference on request, but it's not handy)
reports that the USAF now attaches a much higher priority to equipping
the KC-135s and KC-10s with wing pods for probe-and-drogue refuelling,
and to equipping USAF fighters with probes (!).  Whatever technical
problems there may be with probe-and-drogue from a large tanker --
which, please note, have never bothered the British, who do it all the
time -- the USAF now sees being able to refuel more than one fighter at
a time from the same tanker as more important.  Apparently far too much
Gulf War flight time was spent waiting in line for the tankers.

-- 
"We're thinking about upgrading from    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5."              |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry