On Mar 13, 9:46 am, Kingfish wrote:
On Mar 13, 12:18 am, Jeff Dougherty
wrote:



I believe that the design Boeing offered to the USAF was not the same
as the one currently being built for Italy and Japan- it's based on
the 767-200LRF airframe rather than the 767-200ER. And while the
airframes themselves have been flying since 2005, they only started
testing the refueling systems last year and none have actually entered
service yet. First deliveries are supposed to be in the first quarter
of 2008. It's still been around longer than the A330-MRTT variant,
but the disparity isn't as large as it first appears.

Boeing still has a great deal more experience building tankers, of
course, but I'd hesitate to call either of these designs significantly
more mature than the other.

I recall Boeing's Advanced Tanker was some kind of hybrid, like you
said it's based on the 767-200LRF but it has a different wing. (can't
find a source for this) The 767 has been around longer than the A330
for sure, but I don't think that lessens the risk in developing a
refueler based on that plane. Either airplane would be a huge
improvement over the creaky KC-135 (now I'm reading they may not be in
as bad a shape as was previously believed)

Per Aviation Leak at: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/gener...aw031008p2.xml

The airframe that was actually being offered, the -200LRF, appears to
still be in development. According to the article, it had the
airframe of a 767-200, wings from the -300F freighter, and cockpit and
empennage from the -400ER model. The 767 is a proven airframe, but
I'm not sure that putting together all those parts and trying to make
them work together is a low-risk strategy. In contrast, I believe
that the KC-767s for Italy and Japan are straight up conversions of
the -200ER airframe, similar to Airbus' proposal for their KC-X
competitor.

With that in mind, meseems that it's a bit of a stretch to call the
KC-767 that's now getting ready to enter service and Boeing's KC-X
proposal the same airplane. They're both tankers based on the 767,
but their construction seems radically different.

-JTD