What is Aerial Refueling?
Aerial Refueling is the process of transferring aviation fuel from one military aircraft to another military aircraft in the air or during flight. the fuel-providing aircraft is called a Tanker and the aircraft which gets fuel in the air is called Receiver aircraft. While performing aerial refueling both tanker and receiver aircraft maintain almost the same height and same speed.
Aerial Refueling allows the receiving aircraft to remain airborne longer and extend its range for strategic operations. A series of Aerial Refueling can be limited only when crew fatigue and engineering factors of an aircraft engine. Aerial Refueling allows an aircraft to take off with more payload which could be weapons, cargo, or military personnel.
Early Developments
Some of the earliest experiments in aerial refueling took place in the 1920s; two slow-flying aircraft flew in formation, with a hose run down from a hand-held fuel tank on one aircraft and placed into the usual fuel filler of the other. The first mid-air refueling, based on the development of Alexander P. de Severskiy, between two planes occurred on June 27, 1923, between two Airco DH-4B biplanes of the United States Army Air Service. An endurance record was set by three DH-4Bs (a receiver and two tankers) on August 27–28, 1923, in which the receiver airplane remained aloft for more than 37 hours using nine mid-air refueling to transfer 687 US gallons (2,600 L) of aviation gasoline and 38 US gallons (140 L) of engine oil. The same crews demonstrated the utility of the technique on October 25, 1923, when a DH-4 flew from Sumas, Washington, on the Canada–United States border, to Tijuana, Mexico, landing in San Diego, using mid-air refueling at Eugene, Oregon, and Sacramento, California.
Similar trial demonstrations of mid-air refueling technique took place at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in England and by the Armée de l'Air in France in the same year, but these early experiments were not yet regarded as a practical proposition and were generally dismissed as stunts.
Types of Aerials Refueling
There are three techniques of Aerial Refueling which are Flying Boom, Probe and Drogue, and Buddy Buddy.
Flying Boom
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In this type of Aerial Refueling, A fuel-providing tanker is equipped with Flying Boom which is a rigid telescoping tube with movable boom controls. A boom operator in a tanker operates a boom in such a way that, the operator connects the boom to fuel-receiving aircraft. after the valve opens from both sides fuel gets transferred. All flying boom mechanism-based tankers have a single boom and can only refuel one aircraft at a time, Boom transfers more fuel in less time and faster.
US Air Force boom operator
Probe and Drogue
In this type of Aerial Refueling, the Tanker aircraft is equipped with one or two flexible hoses/tubes, At the end of that tube, a drogue is fitted. The receiver aircraft attaches its probe to the drogue of the tanker which is also called a basket (the drogue looks like a shuttlecock) and once the valve is opened fuel gets transferred. Probe and Drogue-equipped tankers can refuel two aircraft at the same time, the speed of refueling is quite slow because of the flexible tube.
In this type of Aerial Refueling, A fighter jet is equipped with a probe and drogue system at one of its hardpoint underwing pylons. One fighter jet refuels another fighter jet, this situation arises when massive tanker aircraft can't go in into enemy airspace.
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