F-15/16 fuel endurance

[Guest Dirt Beater]

With no bags and no AR, how long can the eagle and viper stay up, sts?

For instance...the single-ship demo guys and T-birds. How much gas do they have left after the routine?

[EvilEagle]

They are pretty much done after the show. The question really has no answer other than the standard fighter pilot response of "it depends" It all depends on if they are using AB, what altitude and airspeed they are flying. In a clean Eagle I've flown as short as a 0.5 or 0.6 and as long as a 1.6 (could've flown longer with no tactical stuff)

[Guest Dirt Beater]

Evil...how does the performance differ between a clean jet versus one with stuff under the wings?

I also heard from a buddy who flies albinos that the jet performs a little better with wing bags than the centerline bag alone...that doesn't make much sense to me, but what do I know?

[Gas Man]

16 has about a 2 hour endurance with a centerline only. That is cross country 2 hours. No burner ect. Other than that, it depends.

[Guest Mizzouflyer]

When a fighter unit is going to or from the sandbox, do they always go over with a tanker, or is it possible to hopscotch up Newfoundland, Iceland, and back down Europe? I hoping to go into tankers, so I didn't know how much of the work is going to be dragging fighters over the Atlantic and back.

[Gas Man]

Can't answer about what they do as far as always having a refueler. I have never done a fighter drag over the Atlantic. Done several over the Pacific. Tankers do a lot of varied jobs. People moves, "business efforts" where we go someplace and set up refueling ops. Very little Cargo hauling as we can't carry that many pallets, but I have done a couple. We also do aeromedical missions now, alot of hops in one day carring around injured military members. They are a lot of work, but very rewarding. Also when a large group of brass is going somewhere they seem to like the 135 as it is the fastest of the big boys, usually cruise around .84. I don't get bored too often. Although some of the real long trips can be pretty boring. Mizz, you aren't going to doing that many fighter drags if you want tankers. Maybe 10% of what I have done at least is fighter drags. They are sort of fun though as you have someone else to talk to out on your wing.

[Guest kmgraham79]

When a fighter unit is going to or from the sandbox, do they always go over with a tanker, or is it possible to hopscotch up Newfoundland, Iceland, and back down Europe? I hoping to go into tankers, so I didn't know how much of the work is going to be dragging fighters over the Atlantic and back.

Mizzouflyer-

If you have access to the Military Channel or you would like to pick up a bad-ass DVD on Discovery.com, check out the program 'Red October'. It's about an F/A-18 squadron (VFA-106) from NAS Oceana going to Germany to take on the Luftwaffe...to get to the point, they mention that the F/A-18 Hornets have to refuel something like 12 times while flying across the Atlantic...so to answer your question, they don't hopscotch across the Atlantic. I'm sure it's possible to do the hopscotching, at least for A-10's (not sure about the fighters).

[Toro]

Originally posted by Mizzouflyer:

When a fighter unit is going to or from the sandbox, do they always go over with a tanker, or is it possible to hopscotch up Newfoundland, Iceland, and back down Europe?

It's possible, but totally impractical. We always use tankers.

[Guest TheBobGoat]

Originally posted by KIPP:

Also when a large group of brass is going somewhere they seem to like the 135 as it is the fastest of the big boys, usually cruise around .84. I

i thought the 10 was faster than the 135

but we all know the 17 is the fastest of all cargo planes

[Guest Air_chompers]

Originally posted by TheBobGoat:

i thought the 10 was faster than the 135

I don't know the specs on the 135 but it has those big A$$ engines so I presume the mach .84 is correct. But the DC-10 cruises at mach .83 or .79-.80 if they maximize range.

Also when a large group of brass is going somewhere they seem to like the 135 as it is the fastest of the big boys, usually cruise around .84

Don't get me wrong but I thought the brass would use something else. I've been in a KC-135 and it is kinda low on creature comforts; such as pressurization it is based off the 707 and unless they upgraded them it seams as though after 40 + years it would detoriate some.

[Guest TheBobGoat]

ya, those new engines i think only put like 20K thrust each - the 10's put out around 50K and the 17's around 40K

[Guest Walter_Sobchak]

Purely speculation on my part, but I'd be willing to bet that max airspeed/limiting mach on the tankers is a function of aerodynamics, not thrust. I say this because on the B-52 you'll overspeed at level-off if you don't retard the throttles. Compared to previous models the H has a huge power increase, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the KC-135Rs were in the same boat.

[Guest Walter_Sobchak]

And now that I think about it, I can recall a buddy in C-17s say that the tankers were the fastest aircraft at KLTS, a decision that goes back to the tankers needing to keep up with SAC bombers. Can't speak to the -10s, though.

[WHAP]

Ive heard it also alleviates (spelling?) the boredom on the long drags to stay in formation and refuel,rather than wait until Bingo. IFF guy at Moody told me that one.

[Scooter14]

Originally posted by Toro:

It's possible, but totally impractical. We always use tankers.

[EvilEagle]

Originally posted by BeerMan:

The other day my IP, who has been across the pond twice in an F16, was telling me that they have to refuel 10-12 times (about once an hour). Not because they can't make it across on fewer hits, but because they always have to have enough fuel on board to make it to an alternate or divert airfield if somethign goes FUBAR with their jet or the tanker. He said there were times where #4 would finish refuling and lead would start right back up again because it was a long way to concrete.

We always use tankers as Toro said -- every time you put a jet on the ground, you have a chance of it breaking there. Then you have to fly people and parts there to fix it. Plus it would take a few days to do the hopping because of pilot rest, etc when you could get all the jets over the pond with a couple of tankers in one day.

Cheers,

BeerMan

Exactly right -- we could go faster across the pond without a tanker -- with them we have to stay at our refueling speed. (for and Eagle it's 310 kts indicated). You usually can't get the tanker to speed up between refuelings, so you are stuck at that speed. Also, we don't tank at high altitude, so staying low (mid-upper 20's) eats at our fuel consumption rate as well.

[Guest Mizzouflyer]

Thanks for the insight about tanking. I look forward to all the missions -- cargo or tanking. But if the KC-135 isn't that efficient of a people or cargo hauler, why doesn't the AF buy a few squadrons of convertible or combi freighters to pick up the palletized airland cargo? I'm all for multirole airplanes, but it seems you could fit two or three times the cargo on a DC-10 like Fedex uses and have the same training regimen that the KC-10 pilots have. That way you'd save the wear and tear on the true tankers.

I'm sure someone's thought of this before, so there must be a reason.

[Scooter14]

The KC-135 was built for one main reason, to get the bombers to downtown Moscow. Remember, in 1957, it was state of the art. That's why Gen. LeMay bought so many.

Sure, the KC-10 is great for cargo, and it can up and haul a fighter unit lock, stock and barrel, but if I understand correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong) does not have the quick response starting capability of the -135 and never sat SAC alert for that reason.

Hopefully, the future tanker will be as tough and as numerous as the -135 and as versatile as the KC-10, with it's huge cargo area, receiver air refueling capability and built in drogue system separate from the boom.

[EvilEagle]

It all comes down to the mighty $$! That's why the 767 tanker deal got shot down. Man, that would've been nice to get!