"Walter Luffman" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 08:52:32 -0700, David Lednicer
wrote:

What a crock! Those tankers have been rigorously maintained for their
entire lives. Age doesn't enter into it. The B-52 is of the same
vintage
and continues to provide except service. Until this recent 767 debacle
the
Air Force said the tankers would not need to be replaced until 2020.
As
Nader said, this clearly "corporate giveaway" to the ailing Boeing at
the
expense of the American taxpayers.

Nonsense! Aluminum fatigues - the KC-135s have all had to have
horizontal tails cannibalized from 707s retrofitted to keep them in
service. Systems fail and parts are hard to find for aircraft as old as
the KC-135s. Airliners have finite lives and the KC-135s are coming to
the end of theirs.

Any aircraft can be maintained in serviceable condition indefinitely
if one is willing to pay the costs. With the B-52 fleet, virtually
every part on every bird has been replaced more than once; that gets
very expensive when parts are specific to a particular aircraft type
that has been out of production for decades. Fortunately, the Boeing
engineers designed such a rugged and capable bird that it is still
capable of performing its heavy/nuclear bombing mission fifty years
after it first entered service, and despite all the changes in either
mission or warload over that period. Part of the reason for this
"over-engineering" was the willingness of the only buyer -- the U.S.
Air Force -- to pay almost any price to get exactly what it needed and
wanted on an exclusive basis.

OTOH, the R&D costs have long since been amortized and the aircraft
itself has changed very little (other than continuing improvements in
electronic systems) in decades, so producing replacement parts for the
B-52 is probably considerably less expensive today than it was when
the aircraft was still in production. It's also the only way to keep
the B-52s in service of course, short of rebuilding the assembly lines
and producing new aircraft. (When it comes to projecting a U.S.
military presence, the B-52 is not just any old aircraft; it is
uniquely American, distinctive in appearance, and to many people
synonymous with U.S. nuclear and conventional bombing capability.)

The KC-135 is essentially just one version of the aircraft most of the
world knows as the Boeing 707, and was designed with mass production
in mind.

And you were doing so well. The KC-135 precedes the 707. You will note that
some parts interchange but the Airframe and most panels won't. It's
slightly smaller. After the 135 was produced, they widened it, extended the
wings a bit for Passenger service. They are NOT the same Aircraft.


The original aircraft design was influenced to some degree
by the necessity of making it competitive price-wise with similar
designs from other companies. Neither jetliners nor military aerial
tankers are usually exposed to the sort of strains placed on heavy
bombers;

You are falling apart. The KC-135 can outclimb anything in it's weight
class. And carries about 3 times it's own weight in Fuel load. The strain
that the AC goes through is much higher than it's civilian counterpart.
Therefore, the fatique is much higher as well. I don't know of too many
Civilian Liners that can cruise (including climbout) at 500 knots like the
KC-125C can. They call it an E-6 these days but even a fighter can't run it
down if you give it a head start. These are NOT civilian AC in any way,
shape or form and the original KC-135A now the KC-135R got almost everything
new except for the Air Frame. When the Air Frame goes, the AC is sent to DM
to rot in the Desert. Some of those Airframes are 50 years old. Even the
B-52 isn't that old.

nor are they intended to continue in service anywhere near as
long as the B-52 has flown, since expected improvements in technology
essentially guarantee their eventual obsolescence and retirement from
regular service. (I hate to use the term "planned obsolescence", but
in one sense that is what we're talking about.)

You are completely falling apart on that one. The KC-135 predates the Buff.
And it looks like they may outlive them if things keep going like they are.



The civilian Boeing
707, once the most common jetliner on international, transcontinental
and transoceanic routes, has long since been retired by almost all the
world's airlines -- which actually made it economically feasible for
the Air Force to keep the KC-135 flying a few years longer, since
plenty of retired aircraft with still-usable parts were available
(cheap!) for cannibalization.

Outside of only a few parts, almost nothing is interchangeable from the 707.
The KC-135 has been so severely modified that it's not even the same AC
except for the Airframe and maybe the Horizontal Stab.


After more than 20 years of this
practice, however, the best parts-donor aircraft have already been
taken and prices for the remaining 707s are going up.

The KC-135 is a different AC entirely these days. Why would anyone want to
cabal something from a tired old AC that is already in Mothballs.



Add to this an increased mission for the aerial tanker force. Used to
be, only a relative few military aircraft were equipped for in-flight
refueling. These days, practically everything that goes into a war
zone has either a boom receptacle or a probe -- and, as we saw in both
Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, that can mean a lot of thirsty birds
in search of someplace to get a drink. Today's larger tankers are not
only equipped with both boom and probe-and-drogue, but in some cases
are actually able to refuel more aircraft before returning to base
with dry tanks; that means more fill-ups from a single tanker and thus
fewer tankers required in or near hostile airspace.

Larger tankers? Oh, you mean the KC-10s. The AF doesn't have that many as
they are REALLY, REALLY expensive. They are primarily used to transport
Fighters across the Oceans. Since most of the KC-10s are assigned to the AF
Reserves, those are not the ones near the War Zones. The KC-135, P-3 and
the KC-130 handle it closer to the action. The fact is, the P-3 and the
KC-130 operate almost right on the front lines while even the KC-135
operates further behind the lines. Due to financial reasons, it's better to
lose a P-3 Orian or a KC-130 over a KC-135. At least those two only cost a
few million where as the KC-135 cannot be replaced.

Got a newsflash for you. For almost every Buff, there is a KC-135 assigned
to it. The mission profile is for the Buff to take off using quite a bit of
fuel. Meet up with a KC-135, gas up and head accross the Ice Cap. Without
that lone tanker, the Buff is a one way ride. They may be anyway but at
least the KC-135 gives them a chance.

If a Buff is low on gas, the KC-135 gives them all it has less about 5000
lbs. That is enough gas to break away. After that, the KC-135 is deadmeat.
It's going down. The Crew cannot eject due to the communciations antenni
along it's belly. It will shred anyone attempting to jump out the Crew Door
and jumping out of anywhere else is just plain suicide. The Boom may get
out by breaking out the rear glass but he will be the lone survivor. Unlike
the Buff, the crew has to jump and the chances of survival is slim to none.
Staying with a Tanker with fumes in the tanks with the motors off survival
is none to none.

The KC-135, due to the Air Frame, can't last forever and it IS older than
the Buff you keep comparing it to. There aren't too many 195X series Buffs
still flying but there are a ton of 1954 to 1957 KC-135s still in the air.