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U.S. Air National Guard photo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The US Air Force (USAF) is on track to certify the iconic Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk for aerial refueling on its latest tanker, the Boeing KC-46, by the end of March 2024. Despite the F-117 fleet’s retirement from active service, the USAF is moving forward with plans to integrate it into the KC-46’s refueling capabilities. Andrew Hunter, the USAF’s acquisition boss, disclosed the inclusion of the F-117 as a receiver for aerial refueling during a testimony to the House armed services projection forces subcommittee on March 12, 2024, as first reported by Aviation Week. The...

A.I. is rigged. When looking up any question susceptible of a liberal bias, A.I. appears to provide a biased answer. Today I asked my A.I. “copilot,” “How long does it take to re-fuel a gas-powered car?” Even without being asked, my copilot insisted on comparing fueling time for gas-powered cars to charging times for E.V.s, concluding that “in summary, while gas refueling is faster in the worst-case scenario, considering overall monthly time spent, E.V.s are more efficient in terms of charging time.” I didn’t even ask about charging time for E.V.s, but A.I. insisted on comparing E.V.s with gas-powered cars...

Five U.S. service members were killed Friday evening after their aircraft suffered a mishap and crashed into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Pentagon revealed Sunday. The mishap took place “during a routine air refueling mission as part of military training, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) said in a brief statement... that the aircraft crash “was purely related to training and there are no indications of hostile activity.” The command gave no further details on the type of aircraft involved in the crash, the military service it belonged to, or the exact location or timing of the accident.

An unmanned tanker drone successfully refueled a fighter jet in mid-air during a test flight on Friday. The impressive feat, which involved a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet, demonstrated the significant potential of unmanned tanker drones and could mark the beginning of the end for traditional piloted tanker aircraft. During the test flight, the drone - a Boeing-built device named MQ-25 Stingray - maintained its altitude and speed as the hose extended and the two aircraft briefly linked up to exchange fuel. The test was carried out from the MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois. In total, 325lbs of fuel...

Northrop Grumman and NASA are launching a "first-of-its-kind" refueling vessel, the Mission Extension Vehicle, aboard a Russian rocket on October 9th. The inaugural MEV-1 will dock with an Intelsat satellite in three months' time and provide life-extending services over five years. After that, it should be free to help other satellites -- it'll still have 10 years' worth of fuel. A second spacecraft, MEV-2, will help another Intelsat satellite in 2020 and should have the same amount of leftover fuel. Both MEVs are flexible, too. They can dock with 80 percent of current geostationary satellites, even if they weren't designed...

Military flights making stopovers in Scotland are not unusual, and there were no rooms closer to the airport, an Air Force spokesman said Saturday in an emailed statement to The Associated Press. “As our aircrews serve on these international airlift missions, they follow strict guidelines on contracting for hotel accommodations and all expenditures of taxpayer dollars,” Brig Gen Edward Thomas wrote. “In this case, they made reservations through the Defense Travel System and used the closest available and least expensive accommodations to the airfield within the crews’ allowable hotel rates.” [...] A local government contractor made the Scotland reservations, and...

Hide in Plane Sight Family of Possible 727 Pilot: "He Is Not a Terrorist" W A S H I N G T O N, June 18 - While international authorities continue their search for a missing jetliner, fearful that it could be used in a terror attack, the family of the American believed to have been piloting the aircraft worries about his fate. Workers at Luanda Airport in Angola watched dumbfounded on May 25 as a Boeing 727 taxied down the runway and took off - without permission. The plane - which ABCNEWS has learned was refitted to haul...

The United States has started daily aerial refuelling for warplanes in the Saudi-led coalition carrying out air strikes in Yemen, the Pentagon has said. The first refuelling flight took place on Tuesday night with a US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker providing fuel for a F-15 fighter jet operated by Saudi Arabia and an F-16 flown by the United Arab Emirates, spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told reporters yesterday. "We will have a tanker sortie every day," Warren said, adding that all flights will be outside of Yemeni air space. Pentagon had announced plans for aerial refuelling earlier and officials say American...

With the announcement of the indefinite suspension of nuclear refueling of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the White House has signaled a new shift in naval technology - away from costly and potentially hazardous fossil fuels, towards non-toxic and environmentally stable wind power. Not letting Republican obstructionism of the budget process go to waste, President Obama's national defense team is putting together a plan to retrofit US warship with 'tried-and-true' sails, taking advantage of free, naturally occurring wind rather than diesel and nuclear fuels that put crews at constant risk of causing an ecological disaster.

The U.S. Navy will delay the refueling of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) for an unknown period because of the uncertain fiscal environment due to the ongoing legislative struggle, the service told Congress in a Friday message obtained by USNI News. Lincoln was scheduled to be moved to Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Newport News Shipyard later this month to begin the 4-year refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) of the ship. “This delay is due to uncertainty in the Fiscal Year 2013 appropriations bill, both in the timing and funding level available for the first full year of...

Northrop Grumman dropped out of the US Air Force tanker race nearly four months ago, but a new contract award revealed 1 July shows they remain in the aerial refueling market. In fact, Northrop plans to go one better than manned aerial refueling - the aerospace giant is now working with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on autonomous high-altitude refueling. Under a $33 million deal dubbed KQ-X, Northrop will demonstrate refueling with a pair of Block 10 RQ-4 Global Hawks the company is currently sharing with NASA The ability to refuel mid-air without the aid of a...

American warplanes are being equipped with electronic tags, so that aerial tankers can automatically note who got what when they are refueled in flight. These records used to be updated manually, which led to errors, and a distraction for the boom operator who was handling the refueling operation. The electronic tag is called RFID (radio-frequency identification), and it's been in development for years, to replace bar codes (which was the previous revolution in keeping track of stuff). RFID uses small labels containing a cheap (less than a buck now, headed towards pennies each) electronic device that contains information about what...

In preparation for long-range missions and possible conflict with Iran, the Israel Air Force has expanded its training programs to include rapid refueling operations on runways. It’s a dangerous practice since the aircraft’s engines are running while the fuel nozzle is still connected to the jets. The training is for both pilots and ground crews and it is being done to enable the aircraft to carry as much fuel as possible for long-range missions. Fuel nozzles are traditionally disconnected from fighter aircraft while they are still parked in hangers and before they are rolled out to the runway, where they...

12/24/2009 - ROYAL AIR FORCE MILDENHALL, England (AFNS) -- 'Twas two weeks before Christmas in the European sky ... I witnessed a KC-135 Stratotanker pumping fuel so a fighter could fly. A 100th Air Refueling Wing KC-135 aircrew airborne over Denmark refueled 30 Royal Danish Air Force F-16s Dec. 8. Royal Air Force Mildenhall Airmen were all busy at work ... not realizing in the sky arose such a quirk. I was taking photos of a formation of four Danish F-16s flying of the right wing of the KC-135 when the most peculiar thing happened. When out of the boom...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co's (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) program manager for tanker aircraft voiced great confidence on Tuesday about winning back a $35 billion aerial-refueling deal from a team that includes European archrival Airbus. Mark McGraw, a company vice president, said he was "as confident as I can be" that congressional auditors would find fault with the U.S. Air Force's February 29 choice of the rival team of Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Airbus parent EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) to build 179 planes.

Aircrew aids Globemaster carrying severely injured troops from Iraq. ROYAL AIR FORCE MILDENHALL, England, Feb. 14, 2007 — A late night call, a cancelled sortie and flexibility led an aircrew from the 351st Air Refueling Squadron here to expedite medical care for more than a dozen severely injured troops being transported from Iraq to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Feb. 7. "The maintainers and my crew worked unbelievably fast because we realized how critical the mission was, " Capt. Colin Henderson, 351st Refueling Squadron According to Capt. Brent Toth, 100th Operations Support Squadron scheduler, the refueling mission was far...

/begin my translation China: First-ever Success in In-flight Refueling With the recent first-ever success of in-flight refueling, which supplies fuel to a plane in flight, China rises to become a country with strategic military, which can conduct all-weather missions on both land and sea. An air force unit in Guangzhou recently completed the successful in-flight refueling training for the first time in China. It made China the fifth country in the world with in-flight refueling capability, after Britain, U.S., Russia, and France, according to Oct. 29 report of Wenwei Bao in Hong Kong. Chinese military experts said that the success...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., Sept 8, 2006 – The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in a joint effort with NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, performed the first-ever autonomous probe-and-drogue airborne refueling operation August 30, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The demonstration was conducted with a NASA F/A-18 configured to operate as an unmanned test bed. The Autonomous Airborne Refueling Demonstration (AARD) system used GPS-based relative navigation, coupled with an optical tracker, to provide the precise positioning required to put a refueling probe into the center of a 32-inch basket dangling in the air stream behind an airborne...

4/28/2006 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- Fighters are in the air 24 hours a day, providing constant support to ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without midair refueling, that coverage would be lost. The 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron provides fuel to those thirsty fighters as they keep troops on the ground safe, said Lt. Col. Brou Gautier, 340th EARS commander. “Our mission is simply to refuel the various aircraft supporting coalition ground forces,” Colonel Gautier said. “The fuel we provide to the close-air-support team increases loiter times, which in turn, allows a smaller force to be more effective over...

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Daisi Eyerly pumps fuel into a B-52. She is deployed to a forward operating location and hopes to pump 1 million gallons of fuel in just 60 days. U.S Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Doug Nicodemus U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Daisi Eyerly Airman Sets Refueling Goal By Master Sgt. Scott King 40th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, Feb. 10, 2006 — She’s well on her way, 160,000 and counting every day. Senior Airman Daisi Eyerly, a national guardsman arrived here with a lofty goal – to pump 1 million...