RAF's first RC-135 has been delivered...

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Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 3,614

Along with the F-35B - will the RC-135 be IFR equipped with a boom receptacle ??

If so, what will we use to refuel them ?? - is the boom on the Voyager working yet ???

Just curious....

Ken

UK F35B will have a probe not a receptacle for a boom. (The lift fan gets in the way anyway)

UK RC-135 are not getting a probe, they will use a receptacle only. We have an agreement with the Americans to use their tankers for our RC-135 fleet.

UK Voyager are not boom equipped, they are equipped with wing mounted pods and a centreline HDU (depending if it is a KC2 or KC3 variant)

The UK F-35Bs will have a probe and will be refueled via the hose/drogue method... just like the USMC F-35Bs, the Italian F-35Bs, the USN F-35Cs, and all other F-35Bs.

Member for

18 years 4 months

Posts: 887

Why not a new Euro-system? Wot fed+kev said...plus: freedom from the curse of (ex-Marconi, now bits of BAES/Finmeccanica).

I worked in (then Marconi Space & Defence Systems), 1976/77: cutting edge software, stimulating to bright young folk. But pay was constained by comparable suits/bean-counters, and job satisfaction was constrained by 20-year cycles, conception to deployment. Now those bright young things are paid very well/see results very soon in such commercial programmes as graphics and games. So (sons of Marconi/Ferranti &tc) can't recruit/retain the best. So: drift, bloat, shaft. How much better to agree a fixed price with DoD and leave it to them to procure complex software on our behalf.