Wide-body Lockheed TriStar airliners were converted to RAF tankers in 1985. (US Navy)
VC10 passenger aircraft to be the backbone of its tanker fleet. These were supplemented by six ex-British Airways Lockheed TriStar wide-body long-range aircraft converted to tanker/freighters in the 1980s. Both the USAF and RAF tanker fleets are now well overdue for replacement. The UK solution has been the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) programme, a £13 billion PFI contract to provide the RAF with 14 tanker/transport aircraft over a period of 27 years. The aircraft selected by the winning contractor AirTanker is another airliner derivative, the Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) which offers a choice of air refuelling systems including an advanced Airbus Military Aerial Refuelling Boom System (ARBS), a pair of under-wing hose and drogue pods, and a fuselage refuelling unit. To-date, a total of 28 A330 MRTTs have been ordered by four customers, Australia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
Airbus Military has completed all the flight tests required for the daylight certification of the new generation Cobham 905 hose-and drogue refuelling system on the A330 MRTT
which paves the way towards the formal military certification of the system from Spain’s INTA certification authority this summer when the light testing of the ARBS will also completed. Delivery of the first A330 MRTT will be to the Royal Australian Air Force later this year while the RAF is scheduled to receive its first aircraft in 2012, although this date may slip. The A330 MRTT is also a contender in the USAF’s protracted and controversial KC-X programme. The competition is for a production contract of 179 new tankers with an estimated value of US$35 billion, and the only contenders left in the race to replace the KC-135/KC-10 fleets are America’s Boeing and Europe’s EADS. The current KC-X programme followed the announcement in 2003 that the USAF would buy the Boeing KC-767 aircraft and lease several more. However, corruption investigations revealed wrongdoing in the award of the contract and it was cancelled in 2005.
The USAF then issued its KC-X Request for Proposals (RFP) in January 2007, and selected the Northrop Grumman/EADS team’s A330-based tanker, the KC-45, in February 2008. However, in
The KC-45 variant of the Airbus A330 MRTT is one of only two contenders for the USAF’s KC-X competition. (EADS)
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