Posted on 09/14/2005 7:37:34 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Wednesday September 14, 7:30 PM
Chinese Air Force masters midair refueling
(Kyodo) _ A military newspaper said Wednesday the Chinese Air Force had mastered midair refueling, making China the fifth country in the world to accomplish the risky procedure. According to the People's Liberation Army Daily, after trials since the 1990s, three warplanes doing an exercise completed the procedure in mid-August. The paper calls midair refueling risky and difficult.
"Midair refueling is an important mark for balancing capabilities for aerial warfare," the paper said. "It's also an important symbol of a country's national defense strengths."
The paper offers a play-by-play description of the successful midair refueling exercise but does not give details such as where it took place or the number of people involved. Photos with the article show two fueling aircraft trailing meters behind the aircraft getting refueled.
France, Russia, Britain and the United States can also refuel planes in midair.
China has said over the past few years it would modernize the military to compensate for downsizing the number of soldiers. Disarmament over the past 20 years has reduced the number of troops from 4.24 million in 1985 to 2.3 million in 2003.
Not really. The Flight Refuelling Mk32 pod (most common fit)is limited to 400 US gal/min (almost half, not a quarter of a boom rate).
But the big fuselage fitted Flight Refuelling Limited’s Mk 17 Hose Drum Unit )fitted to RAF VC=10, L1011, and the Airbus MRTT) manages about 800 US gal/min - which is near boom rates
Great Job, Mid Air Refuelling has been done since the '20. They are 85 years back.
This may be a fantasy, but I don't think so. The people that are responsible for taking our miltary through the 21st Century aren't wasting a great deal of time thinking the King of the Hill is so through the will of God alone.
Good military people (GOOD military people) look to where the bad guys are going so as to see what will be necessary to cope. It's just so important for the US to stay the finest military force in the world in both personnel and hardware. It's vital that the Chinese and the terrorist leaders spend their assets trying to figure how to cope with us.
Naturally, it helps if we have leaders that allocate money to make it so also see where the real needs are. Luckily, most complacent Freepers and complacent people in other venues aren't the puppeteers that have to make the hard decisions. All this leaves me with everlasting respect for the anonymous people that labor for love of country studying needs and figuring how to meet them. There has never been that much glory in that kind of work. In fact it's often a pretty thankless task. Yet if we don't have extremely smart people doing it, we are ultimately doomed.
Get used to it. I used to live in southern Wakayama, and all the girls you wanted to date live in Osaka. But the country always DOES have good drinkin' atmosphere. Except the person next to you drinking in the snack is a 50 year old fisherman....
If it's coming from a Chinese military paper I'd take it with a grain of salt the size of the rock of Gibraltar.
I beg to differ, we have far better pilots, but the Su-27 in equal hands is a match for if not superior to the F-15, the Raptor on the other hand own the 27, but we aren't fielding many yet.
Don't underestimate China, that is a dangerous mistake.
One problem, the images shown do not jive, the first and last are of J-8 finback aircraft, but the second is of a pair of Flanker aircraft.
Cause our pilots are secure in their manhood....Navy boys have serious penis envy.
Agreed, but what makes an F-15 superior is our pilots, the institutional "memory" that gets transmitted to them, and the superior command and control afforded by our E-2Cs and E-3Cs.
I've sometimes wondered about the technology involved in preventing leaks as fuel is being transferred between aircraft. Hopefully the answer isn't top secret.
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