Taz, yes, you're correct. N-G, of course. My mistake, and apologies to Lockheed. My best friend is a government contractor, and he tells me HORROR stories about the bidding and review process. Even after he's won, the losers lodge a complaint and delay the whole thing. Possibly, they are even successful at overturning the award and re-starting the process. And, these proposals cost at least $100K to generate. Now, he's a small guy relative to these behemoths, so the costs for firms like Boeing and N-G have to be considerably higher in every respect. So, we KNOW there are big dollar amounts at stake. I think you're right that if it's the AF that needs the planes, then they should spec the RFP and review and grade the proposals. It's logical and straightforward. But, this would appear to be too logical for the Federal government. I'm sure procurement has been set up this way for valid reasons, but we still end up with these disaster stories, especially when it comes to Defense matters. I am hopeful that in the end, all will be right. But, this has taken far too long. CW
CW- One of the real problems is continuity. These competitions take so long that by the time you get an RFP done, a good portion of the people who wrote it and really understood it have been transferred. The new people they bring on are good, but do not understand everything that happened. You are continually having to bring new people up to speed because of the AF's average 3 year rotation cycle. So we screw it up pretty badly. Best acquisitions are those that are done quickly with top cover from above. It not only costs industry time and money to drag out acquisitions, but also the government. Especially when protests drag out the whole process. Taz Terry Phillips
The C-17 range has been improved and the older aircraft are being retrofitted, they aren't limited by range anymore. The KC-10 really is the workhorse of the tanker world but gets very little credit. The company building a new tanker, should build something that can hold near the same amount of fuel as a KC-10 but with integral fuel tanks only, read NO BLADDER CELLS. As someone who works on the KC-10, I have to say that it is one of the most labor intensive aircraft in the Air Force fleet, and when it breaks, it can break HARD, and it's very unsafe at times. To have a bladder cell disbond from an interconnect in flight as the flight engineer watches the FWD Body tank lose 15k lbs of fuel in about 2 minutes is pretty scary. Boeing will not play in the Civilian Tanker game, as soon as they sell a private company booms, the sooner the military would just contract out the tanker support. Jim
QUOTE: I have flown them all, DC-10 still my favorite! This whole tanker issue could be resolved by doing a similar retrofit to DC-10's by converting them to KC-10's much like the MD-10 program since there is no "time life limit" on Douglas airframes. It would be cheaper than the R&D of a new plane. I don't know why they don't do this. They've done it for the Netherlands, as they fly the KDC-10. It's an all integral tank aircraft, and the boom controls are remote operated, monitored with cameras. The DC-10 without the Body Tank mods done like the KC-10 still can carry 40k lbs more fuel than the KC-135's. Jim
Not Eric, and he's still relatively young (so to speak) - 38) that he has been with World only a few years. I always look for something to give him **** about, so now I can give him crap about the MD-11. He was almost not a pilot, but I pushed him in that direction and he went from being a regional pilot to landing at World flying a jumbo. Lately I give him crap about not flying their 747-400 conversion. But now I have a new one.
I was fortunate to get a detailed tour of the C-17 and I was totally impressed with everything that I saw from an operational point of view. I then got a run down on how the flight ops went and I was absolutely awed. I have seen the airplane in operation and know one of the pilots and I have to say that even as a Boeing guy, this airplane is a marvelous example of good engineering. When I was in Preliminary Design we welcomed quite a few engineers who transferred in from Douglas after the acquisition. I was impressed by their quality and energy. They were obviously competent and soon some of them attained management positions. The executives from Douglas who moved in proved to be less dedicated to progressive performance and reverted to the Douglas " don't do anything that might spend some money and let's keep the status quo" . Several good programs were snuffed because they didn't make "a business case". So, the only conclusion that I could make was that the Douglas engineers were very good and management was not. At present, it appears that the Boeing board has awakened to what it should do and has started to rectify the effects of the infusion from the south. Just my view of things and not a reflection of corporate thoughts.
777-200 Freighter airframe. It's not a lightweight like the 767 Package freighter. This thing is beefy and has a high gross landing weight. -300 landing gear and can pack the 110,000 lb/thrust engines if required.. Can't beat the fuel burn for the size of the bird. I guess that's why Air France was the launch customer for it.
I'm pretty sure that was before the extended range modification. They turned the center wing dry bay into an extended range tank for the #2 and #3 main tanks, it added an additional 60k lbs of total fuel. Jim
Jim- Thanks. That is a bunch of fuel. On our long range strike missions, we carried 42K of fuel in F-111s, including two external 4000 lb tanks. 60Klbs is more than our normal landing weight. Gives me a perspective. Will do some research and see how much the range was extended. C-141s could do about 8000 nm, and the C-5 is similar. Unbelievable to me. Taz Terry Phillips
Jim- Unrefueled range on the original C-17 with 160 klb or so load was 2400 nm and, on what Boeing calls the C-17 ER, with 10,000 US gallons JP-8 in a center wing tank, 2800 nm. Still pretty much dependent on tankers to go places. To put that in perspective, it is 3016 nm from Kennedy to Heathrow. Taz Terry Phillips
Taz, 2800nm seems to ridiculously short to me. So an increase of 68000lbs of fuel was a gain of only 400nm? So what's the highest mach # you've experience in the F-111? I had heard that the airframe was strong enough for a much higher number (than advertised) if given the power. Jim
New tanker you say? I just logged a 4.2 in a FIFTY THREE YEAR OLD airplane. Why would we need to get new ones? The thing to remember is when the AF bought the 135s they purchased something like 730 airplanes. There are still over 430 of them in use today. Buying 100 aircraft is not going to go very far to replace the fleet. I don't want to really crap on the KC-10s too much but here goes. If you want a "tanker" that is also a cargo hauler to KC-10 is good. When you want a "tanker" to be a "tanker" the 10 really is not that great. I won't go into too many details here but the 10 burns a lot of gas and that hurts its ability to off load to receivers. Also, an airplane as big as the 10 in theory costs more money than a smaller aircraft would. As far as replacements for the 135 go, if you want a tanker that's main mission is to off load gas there are no airframes made today that are as good as the 135.
Jim- Mach 2.55 in an F-111D. Total Temperature warning light came on and 300 second warning clock illuminated telling us to slow down or risk structural damage. Thread on that somewhere in here. Aluminum airframes have limited time at mach 2+ or structural damage occurs. The F-111Fs were much faster than the Ds, 25Klbst vs 20Klbst, but structural limits still applied. They could go faster, probably mach 2.8 or so, because they accelerated faster, but heating was even worse, and there was less time at peak mach. The mach meter markings quit at 2.5, you had to extrapolate above that or convert KCAS or KTAS to a mach number. Functional Check Flights never exceeded mach 1.8 or so while I was flying F-111Fs. We routinely exceeded mach 2 in the 70s on FCFs in the F-111D. Fuel consumption was actually quite good at mach 2+. Way better than the 120,000 lbs per hour at mach 1.1-1.2 at sea level. 32,500lbs of JP-4, 34,000 lbs of JP-8 internal fuel. Taz Terry Phillips
I would love to hear your details as to why the "10" is not a good tanker...... We are a far more versatile "tanker" than the -135 is, not even considering the cargo capability we have. We may burn more gas, but we carry a lot more. I can't tell you how many times I've had to "consolidate" gas from the -135's over in Iraqistan for various reasons. The ability to take gas as a receiver is a huge reason by itself why we are more versatile. I offloaded 150K to a C-5, dropped down to refuel A-10's, got force extended by two -135's, then rendezvoused with 5 Strike Eagles to drag them back across the pond. All in the same flight.........how's that for a tanker? Granted we can't get in and out of some places the -135 can, but that's why they get the better TDY's........ Your comments sound like they are the rumblings from a -135 guy..........?
Taz, How many years did you fly the F-111? The KC-135 is really on it's last legs. The reliability rate for the aircraft is probably a third of what the KC-10's rate is. It still gets all the glory, but I really don't know why. We had the KC-10's with the KC-135's overseas and KC-10 flew twice as many missions in half the time, yet they still made hoopla over the KC-135's 1000th sortie. A week later, the KC-10'***** their 2000th sortie, and there was the sound of crickets. There were 4 more KC-135's stationed with us, and they probably managed 4 sorties in a 24hr period, and we were flying 6 sorties with the KC-10's in a shift, oh and this was 7 yrs ago.
That was actually in the Deid. Speaking of Al Dhafra, remember when leadership would greet the rotator? How embarrassing was that?
I flew the ILS into 34 at the Deid today. what a @#$hole! Tech stop thank God! The KC-10 is still the "Queen of the fleet". I liked her old paint job the best. Here is a pic of the first flight out of Long Beach. My Father was on the Douglas Flight Test Team along with Bruce Hinds from the USAF who later flew the first B-2. I have some great videos of when they deployed the boom for the first time and over the interphone u hear, "we have a major oscillation of the boom", several feet back and forth more like it! More pics when i get home from my holiday in the Middle East. Cheers from Kwi! Image Unavailable, Please Login
Jin- First flight Oct 1974, last flight September 1991. 192 gate months, 2000+ hours in the F-111. Taz Terry Phillips
If you think the Deid is a hole, don't fly into Balad. I didn't think the Deid was actually that bad. Or was it the coordination of things on the transient ramp? It gets a little congested there.
Yeah, I remember that.....gay! AL Dhafra was great when it was 6 crews, 4 jets, and nothing else, but that stopped after 9/11. I haven't been there in about 5 years, but I hear the fun police put that place on lock-down. Fortunately, I never had to spend a great deal of time at the Deid, just over night's, but I remember it distinctly reminding me of PSAB...........with booze.
The Netherlands Air Force is now updating their cockpit to a glass one. That's a project of Boeing en Fokker. It won't be a MD-10 cockpit, although that sounds more logical to me. Here a picture of the boomer station, with 3D screens and 3D glasses for the bommer, just behind the cockpit. Image Unavailable, Please Login
They've tried upgrading the KC-10's to a glass cockpit, but from what I hear it was nothing short of a disaster. I don't see why this can't be done.
