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P-8 Poseidon choices?


keithjs

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20 hours ago, Truro Model Builder said:
On ‎2‎/‎8‎/‎2020 at 6:21 PM, Stealthman said:

Now that would be a good idea! Although I was a bit perplexed as to why we have 2 & 3 point tankers, why not make all of them 3 point????? Or has someone already had the idea of a boom on 2 pointers??

It saved some money. What else?

Partly true but the previous generation tankers were not all 3 pointers were they?

 

The FRU HDU is a lot of extra weight to cart around and in practice their utilisation is very low, large aircraft in the current fleet have much greater in built endurance than their counterparts from earlier times so the need to extend their range is not such a critical requirement. That said it's an area of operational weakness not to be able to refuel all one's fleet oneself.

 

All I'll say is watch this space.... 

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Victors and VC10s were three pointers, while Tristars had a double unit under the rear fuselage. It could only refuel one aircraft at a time however. I think that it was not fitted with wing units due to engineering issues.

 

In any case my thoughts are that it is better to have more hoses, not less.

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11 minutes ago, Truro Model Builder said:

Victors and VC10s were three pointers, while Tristars had a double unit under the rear fuselage. It could only refuel one aircraft at a time however. I think that it was not fitted with wing units due to engineering issues.

 

In any case my thoughts are that it is better to have more hoses, not less.

Don't forget that some VC-10 tankers were only two point ones. The ones that were converted(ish) from VC-10 C1s, by having the wing pods fitted.

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3 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

How would the Voyagers be modified? Don’t forget there is also the surge capacity fleet (last I heard they were with Thomas Cook!). Would they have the internal plumbing installed?

 

Trevor

 

There are only four in the surge fleet at present - Two were with Jet 2 for the summer, one (ex-Thomas Cook) was/is with Condor and one (G-VYGJ/ZZ339) is used permanently by Airtanker on the South Atlantic airbridge (when it works) and other MOD trooping charters, (The fifth one has been with the RAF since delivered (ZZ343))

 

All the surge fleet were delivered as KC2s and have been de-militarised (but still have all the internal plumbing/wiring etc)

 

If the RAF required a boom refuelling, it woul require a variation/change control to the existing Airtanker contarct, and then it would be up to Airtanker to deliver that, either amend one/some of the existing tanker to have a boom (The core KC2s would be the obvious ones) or, to replace those aircraft with newbuild A330 MRRTs with the boom like the French or Austrailian  (and everyone else's aircraft). that probably comes down to how easy/expensive it would be to modify the existing aircraft as against buying new and selling those. And the tax payer picking up the bill!!)

 

 

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@Dave Fleming thanks for that. I gathered that the core fleet would be the obvious candidates, but wondered how easy would it to graft a whole new rear end onto an existing airframe, or is it not worth the bother? For all we know, everything may well be there ready for just adding a boom.

 

If it’s a matter of modifying the PFI contract, that would be horrendously expensive. I have peripheral experience of modding a PFI on a school project (adding fibre optics for school use) and the Byzantine procedures to document the change.

 

Trevor

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24 minutes ago, Stealthman said:

The Aussie A330s have booms fitted, so no reason we couldn't have them on our 2 pointers

Yeah but steathman the UK at present uses UK manufactured probe and drogue system I don't think we are in a position to use another countries system ....I'm sure boom has its good points but the USN and USMC use probe and drogue and I am sure that it is more than adequate for the UK.....I think it is  disgusting that this deal was carried out...And I am not some jingoistic flag waver anyway enough said Ill probably get a telling off now .   

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Once again I say watch this space, but don't expect anything to enter service for about 5 years......

 

At the time the contract was drawn up (so long ago now) the RAF and the government had no appetite for a boom system, AirTanker have been offering it but until recently were met with deaf ears, now it's being discussed and Dave Flemings got a good handle on the alternatives.

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9 hours ago, Coors54 said:

Once again I say watch this space, but don't expect anything to enter service for about 5 years......

 

At the time the contract was drawn up (so long ago now) the RAF and the government had no appetite for a boom system, AirTanker have been offering it but until recently were met with deaf ears, now it's being discussed and Dave Flemings got a good handle on the alternatives.

Good to hear it's being discussed! We have an operational need for the booms with the RC135, P8 and Wedgetails. 

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12 hours ago, junglierating said:

Yeah but steathman the UK at present uses UK manufactured probe and drogue system I don't think we are in a position to use another countries system ....I'm sure boom has its good points but the USN and USMC use probe and drogue and I am sure that it is more than adequate for the UK.....I think it is  disgusting that this deal was carried out...And I am not some jingoistic flag waver anyway enough said Ill probably get a telling off now .   

As noted below we now have an operational requirement for the boom system and hopefully we'll have a number of A330s kitted out with them.

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Noted but that would mean the UK would need two different types of refueling systems.... p and g not gonna work on Typhoon and F35B.

I guess it depends how difficult it is going to be to negotiate a IFR probe modification with the Poseidon/wagtail/rivet joint design organisation..💲💲💲

 

 

 

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On 2/12/2020 at 9:55 PM, Dave Fleming said:

boom like the French or Austrailian  (and everyone else's aircraft). that probably comes down to how easy/expensive it would be to modify the existing aircraft as against buying new and selling those

The last two RAAF tankers were modified ex-QANTAS aircraft, not new-builds.

 

On 2/12/2020 at 4:56 PM, Hoops said:

Big Plane Kits (BPK) has also announced an injection molded 1/72 scale P-8 based on their forthcoming 737-800 kit.

I'm in! I have a Welsh Models E-7A Wedgetail but am not keen to do the same for a P-8A

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5 hours ago, Bell209 said:

I'm in! I have a Welsh Models E-7A Wedgetail but am not keen to do the same for a P-8A

The welch models kit has several issues:

  1. The fuselage comes in 4 vacuformed pieced that make up a front and rear half. I found joining the front and rear to be very problematic requiring a lot of filling and sanding.
  2. The exact placement if the resin wings is not clear. If you butt them together on the bottom, which seems logical you will end up with anhedral rather then dihedral. if you slide them up on the fuselage you end up with a huge gap to fill and there is no indication how far to slide them up.
  3. The front fuselage has the 737 eyebrow window nolded in as well as the window decals. The P-8 doesn't have these window so that is wrong.
  4. It used to come with white metal landing gear which may have been strong enough to support the heavy resin wings but it now comes with resin gear which is definitely not. After they collapsed I have to replace them with brass tubing. 
  5. The front gear is too short giving it a pronounced node do attitude.

But after it is all said and done it make a nice model

 

 

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Fitting a probe onto a fuel system that wasn’t designed for it is quite a big deal and modern (post Nimrod accident) safety design requirements would probably make it too expensive. The decision on fitting a boom to Voyager will probably be driven by which version of the F35 completes the order. There are persistent rumours that after the ordered 48 B versions the rest will be A models. They can only take boom AAR.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 14/02/2020 at 09:27, Stealthman said:

Good to hear it's being discussed! We have an operational need for the booms with the RC135, P8 and Wedgetails. 

Do we though?  Yes, we now have a number of types that only have boom receptacles, but that doesn't necessarily equate to a requirement.  Nimrods didn't get AAR capability until the Falklands, so arguably P-8s going about their usual business in UK/NATO waters won't need it.  and they're supposed to do all their business higher up - does that mean they have a longer range than a Nimrod did at low level?  And we've had the C-17s for 20 odd years without feeling the need to do anything about being able to refuel them.

 

Still seems very easy for a bean counter somewhere to say no - especially when the cost is going to come down to how much AirTanker want to charge..

 

Al.

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2 hours ago, alhenderson said:

Do we though?  Yes, we now have a number of types that only have boom receptacles, but that doesn't necessarily equate to a requirement.  Nimrods didn't get AAR capability until the Falklands, so arguably P-8s going about their usual business in UK/NATO waters won't need it.  and they're supposed to do all their business higher up - does that mean they have a longer range than a Nimrod did at low level?  And we've had the C-17s for 20 odd years without feeling the need to do anything about being able to refuel them.

 

Still seems very easy for a bean counter somewhere to say no - especially when the cost is going to come down to how much AirTanker want to charge..

 

Al.

As we acquire more aircraft that require booms, including the E6 the operational need will be there. Either we refuel themselves or we rely on the USAF to do it for us. During routine peacetime operations that's fine and we probably ensure such occasions are kept to a minimum, but it's different in a combat environment although no doubt the USAF won't be very far away....

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