Doug \"Woody\" and Erin Beal wrote:

On 7/1/06 8:48 AM, in article ,
"Ed Rasimus" wrote:

On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 08:38:55 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

Ed, you only did that on a KC-135, right? If so, I submit that your sole
drogue
experience is with the drogue universally acknowledged (by those with
experience
of 'real' hose and drogues) to be the worst piece of **** ever to be stuck on
a
tanker. Grabbing the first account to hand, John Trotti's ("Phantom over
Vietnam"):


Guy,

I'm personally of the opinion that it is MUCH harder to tank in turbulence
on a WARPS or WOPR (wing mounted KC-135 or KC-10) than on the "iron maiden."
The hoses are so long that the effects of turbulence become huge.

Thanks. That's 180 deg. from every other opinion I've read (and the explanations
for the difficulty), so it just goes to show that when it's a matter of opinion
there's rarely 100% agreement on anything. I wonder if this might be a/c specific -
which a/c were you flying in which you experienced both locations so you could
compare?

I've never been behind a multiple receiver capable tanker. I don't
think I'd be very comfortable knowing that someone else was just a few
feet off my wingtip, not looking at me and trying to chase a drogue.
Throw in night or weather and the inevitable "Murphy" factor of
someone forgetting which side to come off the hookup after topping off
and the picture gets pretty scary.


Multiple receiver stuff isn't that hard. Truly, the guy on the other side
is merely an afterthought--except I seem to remember that on the Brits'
Victor, there was a significant aileron trim required to keep the jet from
turning inboard. The wingtip vortices always were trying to pull you in.

As another example of a/c specific refueling behavior, an acquaintance, ex A-7E,
mentioned that he found it easier to tank off an A-4 carrying a buddy store on the
C/L, than off an A-7 carrying one underwing. IIRC, he said that with the A-7 his
vertical tail was in the tanker's wing vortice, and a fair amount of cross-control
was needed. Not a big deal either way, but something he was aware of.

So that brings up another question. In the opinion of pilots here, preferably with
direct personal experience, what was the easiest/hardest combination of tanker and
receiver? Do you know of any combinations that weren't cleared for refueling? If
you want to offer opinions based on what you've heard from other people that's fine,
but secondhand information is, well, secondhand;-)

Guy