DC-10s as Water Bombers?

G.R.

My pardon. Talk was about the Mars and I just followed my nose and
missed the 'Y' in the road and conintued on the Mars thread.

USAF bought 60 'Extenders" but I've never seen one refueling as they
came into service after I retired.

Also don't have any feed back from the jocks who flew them.

They are not being mentioned in the cat and dog fight over the 767.
Only the old 135 (E's).

Big John

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 22:24:21 -0500, "G.R. Patterson III"
wrote:



Big John wrote:

What kind of a Military tanker???

From the tone of your post, it seems you think I claimed the Mars was used as
a tanker. I was talking about the DC-10.

The DC-10 was and is used as a tanker. I do not remember the military
designation, but our flying club was granted a tour of one at McGuire AFB two
years ago. You can also see one in the Harrison Ford movie where the pres gets
hijacked ("Air Force One??).

George Patterson
If you're not part of the solution, you can make a lot of money prolonging
the problem.

"Big John" wrote in message
...
I don't know of any of these that have a military counterpart.

"Counterpart" is not the same as "derived from". I'm talking lineage here,
not identical or nearly identical airframes in multiple roles.

A widebody jet converted to fire bomber would involve
different tradeoffs and tactics. It would be a whole
new ball game.

Last time I flew over Victorville there were many airframes
waiting for something to do.

--
Chuck Forsberg www.omen.com 503-614-0430
Developer of Industrial ZMODEM(Tm) for Embedded Applications
Omen Technology Inc "The High Reliability Software"
10255 NW Old Cornelius Pass Portland OR 97231 FAX 629-0665

In article , Big John
wrote:

There's lots of politics in this procurement so you will hear many PR
figures that may not be supportable in operation since they will be
put out to sell project.

put out to sell the project or to kill it. yeah, it certainly
has politics all over it.


If anyone can find apples and apples would be interested in seeing the
figures.

I'm looking...

--
Bob Noel

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message ...
"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...
[...]
So essentially the Mars in use today is the same *design* originally
designed as a bomber, which you incorrectly stated as being
'originally designed' as a troop transport.

I was speaking of the airplanes actually *flying* as water bombers. They
*were* originally designed as transport aircraft, not bombers.

The Mars aircraft flying today *were* originally designed as bombers.
No way around it. Their airfoil, fuselage, and other structures were
designed under a US Navy contract *specifically* for a long-range
maritime patrol BOMBER in 1938, and that aircraft was designated the
XPB2M-1. When the navy decided they didn't need this kind of aircraft,
it was redesignated the XPB2M-1R, and somewhat modified to carry
cargo. There is *no* other way to interpret that the *original* design
was for a bomber. Just like a building that is 'originally' to be a
restaurant might be converted to a bookstore was *still* originally
designed as a restaurant.

As I already pointed out, many (most) aircraft are not from-scratch designs.
They are generally redesigns to some extent of previous aircraft. When I
write "originally designed" I do not mean the very first aircraft in the
lineage, but rather the originally intended purpose of the specific aircraft
in question.

You might as well say that the 747 was originally designed as a bomber.

Uh, no, one couldn't. It was designed 'from scratch' as a passenger
carrying airliner. The designers were told 'We need you to come up
with a design for a big airliner that does X, Y, and Z.' Just as the
designers of the Martin Mars were told 'We need to you come up with a
heavy-life maritime patrol bomber.' The 747 obviously borrowed ideas
from aircraft that came before it, but it was designed with a specific
purpose in mind (passenger carrying), just as the Mars was (bombing).


You are also losing track of the point he all of the discussion regarding
the actual "design" is moot unless the person claiming only bombers make
suitable water bombers can explain what it is about the design of a bomber
that is unique. Obviously since bomber designs have been converted to
passenger designs, they really aren't all that different. There is no a
priori evidence that a passenger design cannot be used in a bomber role,
even if it's as a water bomber.

Pete

I'm not losing track of that at all. I just thought it ironic that you
chimed in attacking a poster, and even said in one post:

"I'm just trying to get the facts straight. More than can be said
about you.
You're right about one thing...you sure didn't put up much of a
fight."

and you *didn't* get the facts straight. In fact, you got them dead
wrong.
I just thought it a bit funny that you were so insistent in the manner
in which you attacked a poster (for making a factual error, which it
turns out he didn't make), and were provably wrong on the facts
yourself.

Cheers,

Cap

In a previous article, "Michael Nouak" said:
While I generally agree with the rest of your post, you're incorrect here.
The B747 was originally conceived to be a cargo plane for the military, in
competition to the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, which eventually won the contract.
Only after losing did Boeing decide to convert its design to pax use.

However, they converted the design. Unlike the Mars, where the company
took ALREADY BUILT bombers and stripped out the guns and stuff to make it
into a troop transport, they went back to the drawing board, and stripped
off structure that would have supported the military requirements for
higher G loads, rougher landing zones, and heavier concentrated loads on
the floors, making an aircraft that was no longer strong enough for a
military mission.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Or, to put it another way, if you see a long line of rats streaming off of
a ship, the correct assumption is *not* "gosh, I bet that's a real nice
boat now that those rats are gone". - Mike Sphar

Paul Tomblin wrote:

Unlike the Mars, where the company
took ALREADY BUILT bombers and stripped out the guns and stuff to make it
into a troop transport, they went back to the drawing board, and stripped
off structure that would have supported the military requirements for
higher G loads, rougher landing zones, and heavier concentrated loads on
the floors, making an aircraft that was no longer strong enough for a
military mission.

Uh, no, they didn't. They stripped all that stuff off the prototype to sell
the Navy on the idea, but the five production aircraft were all built as
transports based on the redesign.

George Patterson
If you're not part of the solution, you can make a lot of money prolonging
the problem.

"Big John" wrote in message ...
What about the:

All of them have military variants (well at least except for the 7E7 which doesn't really exist yet).

737

T-43

757

C-32

767

KC-767

"Big John" wrote in message ...

If they do it's a bad decission as the 767 doesn't have the range or
load to project air power around the world. For example it will take
two 767's to refuel the same gallons as a single KC-135.

Another problem is that the 767's won't fit in the hangars being used for
the KC135's they replace. The Air Force is spending some of that supposed
savings building new hangars.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message ...


From the tone of your post, it seems you think I claimed the Mars was used as
a tanker. I was talking about the DC-10.

The DC-10 was and is used as a tanker. I do not remember the military
designation

KC-10