Tag Archives: tanker

West Seattle Bonuses

We made a trip to West Seattle with our guests while they were here.  We were looking at the view of the city and also wondering what wildlife might show itself.  I got a benefit in that departures from SeaTac and Boeing Field were coming to the north.  I got a couple of nice airliner shots as they climbed out over us.  They weren’t the only ones though.  A KC-46 launched out of Boeing Field and climbed over us as it went off to its test area.  I wasn’t paying attention, but my guests spotted something rocketing up behind it.  An F/A-18C Hornet from the Strike Test unit was following it, presumably for some test work.  It climbed rapidly but then leveled out, I assume to stay below the departure routes from SeaTac.  Not a bad bonus for me while showing the sights to my guests.

Details of a Pegasus

The KC-46 Pegasus test program drags on.  The delivery of jets to the USAF is still not happening and the number of jets built increases but they are stacking up at Paine Field and Boeing Field.  Meanwhile the test jets are working through test points and endeavoring to prove that the problems identified in previous tests are now resolved.  I have seen a few jets now and shot them in varying conditions from sun to downpours.

I was at Boeing Field one evening waiting to pick up someone at SeaTac later in the evening when one of the test jets taxied out from the Boeing ramp at the north of the field and came right by me prior to departing on another mission.  The jet was configured with the boom and the underwing pods so the planned final configuration.  As it came by, I decided to get some shots of the airframe to get a better idea of what the various parts look like.

The airframe is the familiar 767 although there are some changes structurally.  The cockpit is updated too but you can’t see that from the outside.  However, you can see the various sensors mounted around the airframe which, I assume, are radar detectors.  Above the cockpit is the receiver receptacle for the refueling boom to allow the jet to receive as well as dispense fuel.  You can’t see much from the ground other than the markings to guide the boomer (and the markings that identify which jet it is).

The underwing refueling pods are a source of some of the troubles the program is having.  Apparently, the supplier in the UK underestimated what was required to achieve he civil certification that is part of the contract requirements.  The pods may not be cleared when the initial jets finally enter service.  Modern pods have a more streamlined look.  Earlier pods have a blunt back end that the hose and drought come out of.  The modern pods and more streamlined and the rogue comes out of a ramp in the bottom of the pod.

The back end has the boom.  Given how many boom tankers Boeing has produced, modern booms seem to cause them a lot of trouble.  This one is still one of the major defects with the jet.  Hopefully it will be resolved soon.  The boomer does not have a window like the earlier jets but instead uses stereo video cameras to give the boomer the view of what is going on.  I assume some of the apertures around the rear fuselage are for the cameras to support this functionality.  We shall see how long it is before we see this being used for real by the USAF as opposed to the test team.

Pegasus Testing with the Hornet (and it’s not raining)

My luck with KC-46s and bad weather broke recently with a Pegasus launching out of Boeing Field on a glorious day.  It was carrying out trials work with a US Navy Hornet.  This jet was the subject of its own post.  The KC-46 followed it down the runway.  It rotated in a good location and the light was so much nicer than I have had recently so I was very happy to get shots of it as it climbed out and headed off to the airspace set aside for testing.

Sure, Wait for the Storm

When the weather starts to turn, you can assume that whatever you are waiting for is likely to show up just after it gets bad.  In this case, a KC-46 Pegasus was on its way back to Boeing Field and the clouds were rolling in.  Things were getting darker and it looked like the clouds would open.  Meanwhile, the KC-46 was still a distance away.

Sure enough, the skies opened.  By the time the jet was on final approach, the light had disappeared and the rain was belting down.  I got some shots of it but, even with a bunch of exposure compensation, the jet was more of a silhouette than anything else.  A little post processing help brought out the detail but this was not an ideal shooting situation.  A dark grey jet in dying light is just what you want!

Boomer Position in a 747

If you think of aerial refueling tankers, the Boeing 747 is not going to be the first plane that jumps to mind.  However, a tanker version of the 747 was developed and is in service to this day in Iran.  I haven’t seen one of those planes but, before they were built, Boeing undertook testing of the configuration on their testbed, the original 747 prototype.  This is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.  When we were walking through the fuselage, we got to the read and found the boomer station.  Apparently, it was not removed after installation.  It looks remarkably similar to that from a KC-135 so I guess they ported the design across rather than come up with something significantly different.

Two Tankers

The KC-46 Pegasus tankers have appeared in the blog before but only on the ground.  That post can be found here.  I have finally seen them flying.  A couple of them were airborne on test flights from BFI and, while they had taken off quite far apart, they ended up returning quite close together so I was able to get shots of them both.  They don’t look terribly dissimilar which is what you would expect.  They are fully fitted out with the boom and one of them has the pods so this is what a service aircraft should look like when the Air Force squadrons start to get their hands on them.

Preserved KC-97

A strange airfield means time for a trip around the perimeter to see what is around.  Medford didn’t disappoint.  A small museum included a nicely preserved Boeing KC-97 tanker aircraft.  Sadly, everything was closed up so I couldn’t take a closer look.  Meanwhile, the fencing around it was pretty close in so it was a bit of struggle to get a clean shot but there will still some options.  The boom was no longer fitted but, otherwise, it looked just like you would hope.

At Last a Voyager – But…

The Royal Air Force has replaced its tanker force since I left the UK.  The VC-10s and TriStars have been retired and there is a public private partnership in place to deliver tanking support.  This uses converted Airbus A330s.  They are able to provide tanking and transport services (with some of the aircraft configured only for transport).  In RAF service, these jets are named Voyager.  Red Flag 17-1 was my first real opportunity to photograph a Voyager in action.  (Annoyingly my sister has shot them before me and has been on a refueling mission with them!)  While an A330 might not be the most exciting jet to see, I was really looking forward to photographing it.

As the mission was recovering, the light was great.  Low sun providing a warm and soft illumination on the returning jets.  Then, the Voyager called up.  Just as it did so, the sun went in.  The Voyager came down the approach, its gray fuselage in the shade of some clouds.  It landed, taxied in and then the sun came right back out again.  Arghh!  Sure, I can bump up the white balance a bit to warm things up but the jet was in shade and there is not much I can do about that.  I had to leave before it recovered on the following day so no luck then.  They will be around for a while so I guess I will get any crack at this at some point.

Building But Not Delivering – The KC-46 Story

The tale of the USAF’s quest for a new refueling tanker has been long and drawn out.  People went to jail, awards were made and overturned.  None of that matters now.  The contract is with Boeing to produce a variant of the 767 as the KC-46 Pegasus.  The program has not been smooth.  Technical and production issues have caused delays.  The in service date has slipped and Boeing has incurred a lot of overruns.

While all of this has been going on, the production process has not stopped.  Consequently, while testing still continues, there are production airframes coming off the line.  If you go to Boeing Field, there are a bunch of test airframes on the flight line.  If you go to Paine Field, there are a bunch more that remain to be finished.  It appears that Boeing is building the airframes, sealing them up, not fitting high value items like engines, and parking them wherever there is space.  A few years ago, Paine Field was covered in undelivered 787s.  Now it is as if time has turned back because the Dreamliner’s predecessor is the type parked all over the place.

Hercules Tankers at Nellis

B11I4296.jpgRed Flag 16-4 was a bit unusual in that tanker support was not what you normally see.  No KC-135s were taking part.  The Israeli Air Force had brought some 707s for tanking there jets.  The rest of the tankers were KC-130s.  An MC-130J showed up although I don’t know whether it was part of the exercise or just there coincidentally.  The Spanish Air Force brought their KC-130s to support the Hornets.  Seeing a camouflaged Herc is a nice change given how most of them are monotone these days.  It doesn’t hurt that, since tankers tend to recover late, they came back as the light was getting very nice.

B11I2198.jpgB11I2717.jpg