In flight refuelled airliners

Antonio

Antonio

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pometablava said:
I've heard recently from aircraft engineers that airliners could be operated more economically if refuelled in flight or even flying in formation.
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Yes. Formation flying, as demonstrated by birds in V-formation, could do wonders for fuel economy. It has never really been done because it's *hard,* especially in anything other than still air. But with the advent of computer controls, it could be a lot easier to do.

The problem is... the good things it'd do for fuel economy probably wouldn't offset the bad things. If you need at least three planes for such a formation (and for all I know it'd take more), then you'd need to find three planes going in the same direction at the same time. This probably means that the three planes would have to leave from the same airport and land at the same airport... which means that the first plane to take off would have to orbit the airport for a while while it waited for the other planes in the "flock."

Bleah.
 
Considering the costs of mid way stop overs on long legs its a surprise that airlines have never gotten into IFR. Certainly flying to and from Europe and East Coast USA to Australia could do with it to save the Singapore/Bangkok/Dubai/Hawaii stopover.
 
Maybe, regarding the always big headlines about "near misses", not to mention
mid-airs, apart from the technical problems, there could be a problem of
acceptance by the passengers, I think. Just imagine those news:

"Military flight procedures for airliners !"
"Airliners shall fly separated only by some YARDS - Still yet, MILES didn't seem to be enough !"

Which carrier dares to start such procedures ?
 
Jemiba said:
Which carrier dares to start such procedures ?
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Since I'm about to fly to the Mediterranean region this weekend from east coast Australia I would like it. Shaving two hours of each flight with the Bangkok stop over would be awesome. Once you get people in that can for long haul flights as long as the plane stays level they don't care. IFR is a proven safe military operation.
 
Il-86 test refuling
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from a military tanker

IFR is a proven safe military operation.
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Maybe some Airlines could operate tankers in the future. ;)

The engineer I heard told that the in flight refuelling could be the only choice for future airline operators if radical new airliner designs are going to be inviable for security regulations.
He told that a big flying wing can't be evacuated as quick as it is established in the current normatives.
 
Even if the aircraft have to land and refuel you can increase the efficiency of aircraft on long hauls. If people are really serious about increased efficiency and dont mind spending longer in aircraft (i doubt that they do) then shorter ranged aircraft doing hops on overland long haul flights would be the best way of doing things.

edit: *ref. RR lecture recently
 
How hard could it possibly be? I mean transport pilots in the USAF do it all the time? I'm pretty sure commercial pilots could probably be trained to do the exact same thing with the same current avionics used on commercial airliners.


KJ Lesnick
 
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/75yrs_inflight_refueling.pdf
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what happened to the pictures? ???
other than that, very interesting,

cheers,
Robin.
 
Interesting concept. However, who'd operate the tankers? Would they be dedicated a la KC-135 and KC-10? Or simply older airliners with a refuelling hose added?
 
The RAF/Air Staff were very much against in-flight refueling of trooping flights, especially family trooping flights. I couldn't find out why. Could be down to something as simple as nobody should be sitting in a Duralumin tube for long periods.

Chris
 
CJGibson said:
The RAF/Air Staff were very much against in-flight refueling of trooping flights, especially family trooping flights. I couldn't find out why. Could be down to something as simple as nobody should be sitting in a Duralumin tube for long periods.

Chris
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Unnecessary risk and cost. Fuel delivered by air is much more expensive than fuel delivered on the ground (or by ship, for islands). Plus the added risk of collision.

And then, as you stated, the people sitting inside probably want to get out and stretch their legs.
 
You wouldn't be able to take fully advantage of IFR ops in commercial flights. You'd still have to lug around hefty reserves in case you hit bad weather or some piece of equipment broke. So the airplane gets bigger, less efficient. Even if this happens once every thousand flights, nothing pisses off customers more than unscheduled stops in the wrong continent.
 
IFR for commercial flights was done, on a small scale, in 1939 with four Short Empire flying boats being fitted for refuelling from modified Harrows to give them transatlantic capability - they could make it from Ireland to Newfoundland without refuelling, but only under favourable conditions. The more sensible expedient of a bigger, longer-range aircraft followed a few years later.
 
AeroFranz said:
You wouldn't be able to take fully advantage of IFR ops in commercial flights. You'd still have to lug around hefty reserves in case you hit bad weather or some piece of equipment broke. So the airplane gets bigger, less efficient. Even if this happens once every thousand flights, nothing pisses off customers more than unscheduled stops in the wrong continent.
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Station fleets of tankers at popular refuelling airports like: Azores, Ireland, Iceland, Southern Greenland, Newfoundland, Dakar, etc. When they hear of an airliner - a few hours out - they launch and meet the airliner at a pre-determined rendevous. They top of the airliner's fuel tanks and send it on its way. The airlienr does not have to fly directly over the Azores, only within "divert" distance.
If the rendevous fails, the airliner still had enough fuel to land at the Azores for the "old" refuelling technique.
Airframes would be mostly older airliners retrofitted with extra fuel tanks, hoses, etc.
 
FAA Administrators would go apoplectic at the hint of air refueling civil transports. If you think getting fly by wire or tilt rotors into national airspace has taken long. I have no faith that the most bureaucratic and bungling of US agencies would entertain "risk" of this magnitude.
 

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