Tony C wrote:
Randy Haskin wrote:
The "boom-and receptacle" system...
That's the phrase I was looking for, in my post I used 'probe' for the 'Boom & Receptacle' method and 'Drogue' for the Probe & Drogue method, if that makes sense!
.....i now understand a little bit more than I did yesterday
And remember Tony, the tanker aircraft dictates a lot to the story. Generally the US Air Force wanted boom equipped tankers to refuel their bombers, as others have stated the boom could transfer fuel at higher rates than a hose, but mounting a boom requires a large, land based aircraft. The KB-29 was the first in widespread service. The USAF has adopted boom and receptacle for most of their aircraft, but there are exceptions of a few USAF aircraft having probes (including some F-102's, F-104's) and some aircraft had both at the same time (most notably the F-105).
Navy aircraft and other smaller air forces had to go with smaller hose and drogue equipped aircraft that were small enough to still operate from a carrier, or with fighters serving as "buddy" tankers as in that great photo of the F-18 and F-35C above. US Navy carrier based aircraft are equipped to receive fuel via hose and drogue, with Super Hornets acting as tankers with a buddy pod/drogue. The Navy misses the dedicated tanker that could offload much more fuel (KA-3, KA-6, S-3 Viking).
Some foreign buyers of US aircraft have been "stuck" with what the aircraft came with (probe or receptacle) and had to buy a small number of tankers to support their fleets. A few have scabbed on probes on aircraft that normally came with receptacles.
Perhaps the odd man out, the UK firmly stuck with hose and drogue, even with their heavy V bombers, transports and patrol aircraft and now find themselves in a quandary with their hugely expensive tanker lease (drogue only) contract, and now have several US sourced aircraft that are designed as receptacle receivers only (C-17, P-8, RIVET Joint) and no boom equipped tankers....