Fuel leakage during in-flight refueling

"Bob" wrote...
I think the probe was "bent" to get the receiver out of the tanker's
wash.

Don't think so...

The A-4 with the straight probe was damn easy to plug -- just stick your
right foot in the basket! It was a whole lot easier than the A-6 with the
big bent probe way up top!

Ed brought up Palace Cobra. First, let me say I never evebn saw any
fuel when refuleing with teh F4 (Duh!- the recptacle's about three feet
beind the cockpit). Anyway - I was an RTU IP when this was going on -
we even got an O5 who'd been at Lawrence Livermore Lbs doing nuke
design for the last 10 years to check out in the F4. He was so full of
classified smarts he wasn;t going anywhere and definitely not to SEA.
But that was okay - he couldn't fly the F4 either and we finally gave
up trying to tech him how. . OTH I had a B52 copilot who oved the F4,
flew it like he was born in it and still hade to go back to B52s. TANJ
- there ain't no justice. If there was, USAF DCS/P would be frying in
hell right now. 'Palace Cobra' sent a lot of 'fighter pilots' over to
SEA who were seriously short of fighter skills. On the job training in
combat is not a very smart way to fight a war. But, seriously, it was
fun to sit around the Patrick AFB O Club (Cape Canaveral) and listen to
a lot of Space Command guys wearing wings whining about their
experience being too valuable to be sent off to SEA. Walt BJ

On 3/24/05 8:24 AM, in article
1111674154.81566ae09bb49e973412b142c168a8e4@terane ws, "Phormer Phighter
Phlyer" wrote:

mark johnston wrote:
When refueling using the probe and drogue system, is it commonplace to have
fuel leakage from the drogue? At my day job, we have a foreign customer
asking about the resistance of an engine to fuel ingestion during refueling.
Apparently it is something of a problem for them, but they have not been
able to give us any specifics.

I thought someone here may have some real world experience they could share.
Do you get a brief mist of fuel when you disconnect? ... or can you
experience an continual "dribble" down the probe during the transfer? Any
info or war stories would be helpful.

Regards,

Mark Johnston




May get a wee bit when you pull out but no leakage when refueling.

I disagree.

About 20% of the time (anecdotally) I've seen leakage from USAF tankers
(KC-135, KC-10 whether on the MIPR, WOPR, or iron maiden) during refueling.
My guess would be due to higher pressure. The puff during back out happens
nearly all the time though on Navy or USAF tankers.

It is VERY uncommon for that leakage to become a problem. Misting fuel will
smudge the canopy a bit though.

There was a Tomcat circa 1997 from VF-211, however, that during a severe
leak from the drogue ended up ingesting quite a bit of fuel down one motor
and landing at NAS Fort Worth. That jet's still at NAS FW, by the way.

--Woody

"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...

snip, snip, snip,

It is VERY uncommon for that leakage to become a problem. Misting fuel
will
smudge the canopy a bit though.

snip, snip, snip,

--Woody


Had hydraulics' go bad on launch once. With other things on my mind, I just
dumped excess fuel. Next liberty port I had to avoid a destroyer crew who
wanted to tell me that dumped fuel doesn't just disappear in a mist. They
were lucky I had already dumped the ordnance on them. grin

Red