from Vietnam to the Falklands and from
the Cold War to the Middle East
air-to-air refueling or tanking is the
unseen force enabler allowing those
countries which have this capability to
project their airpower around the world
and allowing their aircraft to stay in
the air for as long as their crew have
the stamina and the engines have enough
oil so how does this vital service
affect the military
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
today's video is sponsored by fast hosts
now if you're in the UK you have a
chance to win two tickets to South by
Southwest including flights and
accommodation if you can answer my tech
uestion which is the Boeing kc-46
Pegasus is the latest refuelling
aircraft to be used by the USAF from
which other Boeing plane was it
developed from I'll explain more later
in the video now air refuelling might be
seen by some as just the process of
refueling an aircraft in flight but the
impact of this basic process has shaped
the way the military is operated and
ultimately how conflicts have been
fought for the past 70 odd years certain
operations would just not have been
possible without it but this apparently
simple process is fraught with danger
for both the aircraft being refueled and
the tanker carrying the fuel and there
have been some notable incidents whilst
refueling the type of plane being able
to be refueled is not just limited to
Fighters which are the most commonly
seen almost any plane can be modified to
allow air refuelling from tankers to
helicopters to heavy bombers like the
b-52 b2 and for specially modified
Boeing 747s like Air Force One and the
Boeing efore B the US Strategic Command
control aircraft also have air refueling
capability although no US president has
ever used the air refueling ability of
Air Force One and many of the tankers
themselves can also be refueled by other
tankers air refuelling also allows
planes to take off with greater weapons
load and less fuel and be refueled on
route or take off with less fuel and
safe carrying it into the sky and be
refueled later which is shown to save up
to 40% in fuel costs the history of air
refuelling goes back to the 1920s
with first the US Army Air Service and
then shortly after the British and
French air forces this was done by
having two planes fly slowly in
formation one above the other a hose
will be lowered from the upper plane to
the lower line and then the fuel flowed
under gravity
although best method worked it was seen
as more of a novelty than a practical
solution this was also over time of the
first long-distance flight records an
aviation enthusiast saw Air Refueling as
a way to increase their range one of
these was Alan Cobham a member of the
Royal Flying Corps in World War one he
took the idea of the hose and created
the grapple line looped hose method
originally he intended for use with
transatlantic flying boats and in 1935
he demonstrated it in action over the
following years his company flight
refuelling limited or FRL developed it
into the first practical air refuelling
system in the latter part of World War
two this method was adopted by the RAF
for their very long distance tiger force
of Lancaster and Lincoln bombers for
operations against for Japanese
homeland's but the war ended before they
came into service after the war the USAF
bought some of Fr Elle's refueling
systems for their b-29 and B 50 bombers
in 1949 a B 50 called a lucky lady flew
non-stop around the world using an fr L
refueling system boss this worked
Cobham realized it left a lot to be
desired and started work on what would
become known as the probe-and-drogue
which has become one over to standard
methods in use today
this continued to use a hose which would
be let out and trout from the wings of a
body of a tanker aircraft at the end of
the hose it had a drogue which was a bit
like a shuttlecock which provides the
stabilization in the air as well as
doubling up as a funnel to guide for
receiving aircraft's refuelling probe
and lock onto it whilst for connection
is made to fuel his pump from a tanker
to the receiving aircraft multiple probe
and rogues can be deployed by a single
tanker enabling up to three planes to be
refueled at once but the amount of fuel
transferred per probe-and-drogue is
limited to about 1200 liters per minute
in the late 1940s general Curtis LeMay
the head of the Strategic Air Command
asked Boeing to develop a method that
could transfer fuel at a higher rate
than the probe-and-drogue for his bomber
force the result was the flying boom
this used a rigid gimbal
telescoping tube with small winglets
which could be moved this controlled the
position of a boom which was done by the
boom operator who was located in the
rear of a tanker this could transfer
about three times the amount of fuel in
the same time compared to the
probe-and-drogue a couple of other
methods are also used but in a very
limited form which are the wing to wing
method where the receiving aircraft
refuse from the wing rather than a probe
on the fuselage and the body refuelling
where both planes can supply and receive
fuel the first purpose-built air tanker
which was developed by Boeing in the
early 1950s was the kc-97 Strato
freighter which was in turn based on the
Boeing Strato Cruiser the aircraft
Kaycee identify which is still in use
today stands for ke meaning tanker and C
meaning transport over the years some of
the newer tankers have come from
successful civilian aircraft the kc-135
which is still in use is based on the
Boeing 707 and the kc-10 is based on
McDonnell Douglas dc-10 and the latest
kc-46 Pegasus is based on the Boeing 767
the British K 2 3 & 4 were based on the
Vickers vc10 and a Victor K 2 s were
originally V Force nuclear bombers
before being converted into tankers
although through the 1950s and 60s Air
Refueling became much more widespread it
remained there danger
operation and played a major part in the
loss of a b-52g carrying four hydrogen
bombs over Spain the pallamary is
incident of 1966 as it became known as
occurred when the b-52 was about to
perform the second refueling of its
mission as part of Operation chrome-dome
now operation chrome dome was for
response of the u.s. to the threat of a
Soviet nuclear attack and involved up to
12
fully loaded b-52 nuclear bombers in the
air at any one time from 1960 to 1968
flying from the u.s. to around the edges
of the Soviet Union which required
sometimes two or more refuelings
permission as the b-52 approached four
tanker from the rear 31,000 feet over
the Mediterranean Sea our four coast of
Spain it was flight slightly faster than
the tanker which is normal in this
situation the boom operator would call
break away break away break away but no
such call was heard by the crew of the
b-52 and it continued towards the kc-135
tanker what appears to have happened is
still not clear to this day but the b-52
struck the flying boom and collided with
the belly of the tanker spilling fuel
onto both planes which then exploded
destroying the tanker and the b-52 all
aboard the tanker were killed along with
three of the seven crew of a b-52 and
for armed mark 28 hydrogen bombs were
initially lost over the coast of Spain
and the Mediterranean Sea though all
were eventually recovered after a huge
cleanup operation by the u.s. air
refuelling was also instrumental in the
1982 operation blackbuck the bombing of
the Port Stanley Airport by the RAF
Falcon bombers in the Falklands conflict
the seven plan raids at 6600 miles or
twelve thousand two hundred kilometers
were the longest bombing run in history
at the time to get one volcán bomber
from the Ascension Island Bay
to drop 21 bombs on the target in the
Falklands took 11 Victor k2 tankers with
tankers refueling tankers and the Vulcan
receiving 8 refills afterwards vist
caming for some negative reaction not
least for me other parts of the RAF with
a commander of the 801 Naval Air
Squadron saying that for the same amount
of fuel to drop 21 bombs the sea harrier
of a carrier force could drop 2357 that
record stood for 19 years until october
2001 just a few weeks after the 9/11
attacks in New York when the longest
bombing run to date took place as part
of Operation Enduring Freedom the first
of six b-2 bombers took off from
Whiteman Air Force Base Missouri flew
over the Pacific Ocean halfway across
the Indian Ocean and on to Afghanistan
to destroy the air defense systems there
to allow other aerial operations to take
place the one way distance to the target
was nearly sixteen thousand miles or 26
thousand kilometers with refueling being
done by kc-135 and kc-10 tankers and
even boda b2 has a range of six thousand
nine hundred miles or 11,000 kilometers
it took five refuse to get there by the
time the mission ended and the b2 landed
at the Diego Garcia Base in the middle
of the Indian Ocean it had been in the
air for forty four hours and twenty
minutes but the story didn't end there
the b2 was left with its engines running
while she was refueled on the ground new
oil added to the engines the toilet
emptied and new food placed in the plane
then 45 minutes after it landed a new
crew flew the 13,200 Mars or 21 thousand
seven hundred and eighty kilometers back
to Whiteman Air Force Base a totaling
two running time of over 70 hours over
three days six b-2s made the same
journey something that would have been
impossible without air refueling during
the Vietnam War b-52s flying from Guam
and f-105s
F
or phantoms and f-111s amongst others
flying from Thailand relied upon the
kc-135 Stratotanker z-- to carry out
their missions but the tankers could
also do something which was little known
about and thus seemed really rather
amazing and which was to rescue damaged
planes by towing them back to base
there's an instance of an f-111 aardvark
which was damaged by a missile over
North Vietnam and put out a distress
call a kc-135 was about to return to
base and heard the call and responded to
meet up with the f-111 once the boom was
attached to the operator could see that
the f-111 had a serious fuel leak caused
by the missile damage under certain
conditions like this when the plane was
still flyable but would lose too much
fuel to be able to get back to base the
boom locking mechanism was strong enough
to pull the receiving plane along whilst
transferring fuel in this instance the
f-111 was towed back to its base in
Thailand where it was able to land
safely these are just a few of the
stories of the often unseen Air
Refueling which occurs every day around
the world and the effect it has had on
the modern military now our sponsor for
this video fast hosts also deals in what
could be called the unseen but also no
less unimportant services of the
internet from domain names to web
hosting email hosting and alike one of
the services which they offer and I use
every day is Microsoft Office 365 I use
word for my script in OneNote for all my
video subject ideas and exchange outlook
for all my emails because the service is
hosted it's always up-to-date and you
can have it on up to five devices I like
exchange outlook because I can always
get my emails on any device it'll run on
even if the iPhone fails with a hard
drive in the computer packs up I know
all my data is safe online and it just
downloads when I'm set up again
including any of the new messages which
have arrived since you're offline and
with fast host offering you a 50 GB
by mailbox it's unlikely you're gonna
run out of space anytime soon
now don't forget if you're in the UK you
have a chance to win two tickets to
South by Southwest including flights and
accommodation if you can answer my
ticket question which was the Boeing
kc-46 Pegasus is the latest refueling
aircraft to be used by the USAF for
which other Boeing plane was it
developed from if you're stuck the
answers just over halfway through the
video just click on the link in the
description below or enter the URL now
showing and good luck with the
competition