I seem to recall Air Force One can add oil in flight. I would think a greater
concern would be oil breaking down over a period of time. Then again food and
water would also be a limiting facor.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

From: "Gord Beaman" (
Alan Minyard wrote:


Anyway, prob fixed. I'm suggesting adoption of a sentence from the B52
page which states "The use of aerial refueling gives the B-2 a range
limited only by crew endurance".
cheersronh

But is 'that' statement correct? Doesn't the B-52 and the B-2
(all a/c actually) use lubricating oil? How does that consumption
stack up?

In a turbine engine you should consume almost no oil. It is not
burt in the combustion as it is in a recip, and the tolerances are
close enough (at least on US built engines) that leakage is
minimal.

Al Minyard

I don't think so Al. While a turbine engine may not burn much it
has to burn some. The compressor rotates and therefore must have
lubricated bearings therefore there has to be some loss (however
small) across that bearing surface. Now, a turbine engine's
bearings use very much higher RPM than recips do plus the oil
itself is much thinner than recip oil both of which facts lead to
more loss. I realize that the loss is small (I flew a turboprop
a/c as a Flight Engineer for several years so I'm familiar with
them and what they use for oil).
--

-Gord.