Running on Empty
After almost a decade of continuous operational support over Iraq and Afghanistan, the US and UK force multiplying fleets of aging air-refuelling tankers are in urgent need of replacement. David Oliver looks at the options.
The development of air refuelling, invented by the British company founded by Sir Alan Cobham in the late 1940s, was prompted by the jet fighter’s entry into service at the end of World War Two. The first tankers were converted piston-engined heavy bombers such as the USAF’s B-50 and the RAF’s Lincoln but it was the development of the commercial jet airliner in the 1950s that brought the air tanker into the modern age. The most successful was the USAF’s KC-135 Stratotanker based on the Boeing 707 airliner airframe, 732
58 G3 DEFENCE
being built between 1956 and 1964, and more than 400 remain in service to this day. A fleet of 60 modified Douglas DC-10 wide-body long-range airliners entered service with USAF in 1981 as the KC-10A Extender. Meanwhile, RAF had gone a different route by converting its fleet of V-Bombers into tankers, namely the Handley Page Victor which gave stirling service for nearly three decades before retiring in 1993. With the end of the Victor in sight, the RAF followed the USAF’s example by converting more than 30 former civil airline
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64