Vermont F-35 woes

When I used to live in SLC, in the Layton suburb, I could see the Hill AFB. runway lights of I think rwy 14 from my backyard. I don't remember the 35's being too loud, not enough to bother me anyway. But then I lived five miles from KTUS, so I grew up hearing the Corsair II's, from back in the day and then/now the F-16's takeoff, I was used to it.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
Yes, and probably anything else with a drogue system.
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The Marines refueled one behind an Osprey in testing.

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///AMG said:
This may be the most vomit inducing thing I've seen all week
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A couple guys I worked with were trying to go do it to prove how unsuitable the idea was.

Nobody seemed willing to let us park a 90 million dollar helicopter behind one to test.


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mikecweb said:
Just a dumb civilian but can it really receive at a faster rate than its burning doing this?
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I have literally no idea. I know in the Hornet, up in the high 20's with a full combat load out (bombs, external tanks, missiles, etc), you'd occasionally have to tap min afterburner to stay in the basket, and that seemed to refuel at a positive rate still. So maybe? But we also didn't have the enormous lift fan thingie.......no clue how fuel inefficient that thing is
 
Lawman said:
A couple guys I worked with were trying to go do it to prove how unsuitable the idea was.

Nobody seemed willing to let us park a 90 million dollar helicopter behind one to test.


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haha seems wildly unsuitable, to say the least.
 
mikecweb said:
Just a dumb civilian but can it really receive at a faster rate than its burning doing this?
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I highly doubt it, but then again that may not be the point they were going for.

Sometimes just getting enough to not lose anymore is the goal. We had what we called over objective tanking that when you looked at the size of the package didn’t actually change the fuel number and may even lead to a sum negative (lead had burned everything or more by the time #4 was done on-loading). What it did accomplish was hold the fuel number in space for the 30-35 minutes of the evolution. That’s now 35 minutes you are in the immediate overhead in case something happens vs having to leave and come back or leave and refuel and stage from a little ways over there horizon with a recall time.

I could see this being something similar where say you have a desire to put aircraft in a hold and stretch that on station hold as long as possible. This may be a solution but considering I’ve never seen it outside testing, it probably wasn’t worth the effort.

To AMGs point on tapping burner. The DAP 60s have a similar problem with their combat weights. They can often just barely get on the tanker and if they come off mid fuel they were F’d. One solution is to put the tanker in a slight dive to give them some power margins back, but that may or may not be possible.


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Lawman said:
To AMGs point on tapping burner. The DAP 60s have a similar problem with their combat weights. They can often just barely get on the tanker and if they come off mid fuel they were F’d. One solution is to put the tanker in a slight dive to give them some power margins back, but that may or may not be possible.
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Called a tobaggan maneuver, this is common in refueling jets, especially a slower receiver, but also a slower tanker when the old KC-97s were in use. For helos though, our low refueling altitudes often precluded the tanker doing this; as you mention, one of the many times it’s not possible.
 
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