US Air Force Genius Method to Transport 40 Tons of Jet Fuel by Plane
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ม.ค. 2023
- Welcome back to the Fluctus Channel for a compelling analysis of how the US Air Force transports and manages the millions of tons of jet fuel required for the day-to-day powering of its numerous aircraft and bases worldwide.
Fluctus is a website and TH-cam channel dedicated to sea geeks. Whenever you are curious or an incorrigible lover of this mysterious world, our videos are made for you !
We publish 3 videos a week on our TH-cam channel and many more articles on our website.
Feel free to subscribe to not miss any of our updates and visit our website to discover additional content.
Don’t forget to follow us on twitter:
/ fluctusofficial
Please keep the comments section respectful. Any spam, insults or troll will be deleted.
To contact us, make sure to use our email in the about section of this channel.
The US's logistics capabilities are mind boggling. I was in Afghanistan for two years and was never ceased to be amazed of how much material we could get to a land locked country on the other side of the world.
There is absolutely no doubt about it Robert however I think it's only because of Americas remoteness. For eg if you take into account the great wars America wasn't directly affected by land , sea or air. Other countries for eg Britain , France were comparatively slow with their logistics as they were impacted directly and were just near to the epicenter of the war. Apart from that technological advancements have helped them to a very large scale.
Yes, and you left it all to the talibans, Great job!!!
Ups or fedex will bring it to u , lol if it was a different country like China or Russia or powerful country u won’t dare have a chance to bring anything , Afghanistan is ooor country with no military
@@savvyinfo9762 It must not snow where you're from.
@@hrdcpy depends on what state I go to lol but my state have snow sometimes 😉
We did this in the late 60's in Vietnam. Used C-123 Providers and C-130 Hercules aircraft, with large bladders in the cargo area. Only 1 on the C-123, or 2 on the C-130. Usually diesel or JP, never smelled any gasoline though. Every week we had to make flights to outlying units, usually by C-123, land on metal runways (loud !!), pull up to the POL area which was often just a collection of barrels, and offload the required fuel. Take off and go to the next stop, if we had fuel left. Lots of fun. As a note, we sprayed Agent Orange the same way. Bladder in the back, fly the C-123 low and slow, and discharge through sprayers in the back. Spilled a lot of that stuff on the floor, and we walked all through it. "It isn't toxic to humans, only kills whatever plant life it touches". Yeah, right.
Thanks for that. I'm so glad I was fortunate enough to be part of Mother Mac then AMC. It's a decision I made after my brother told me not to go into the army. Thanks big bro and Air Force.
We still do it on the herc. And on the tankers, there's a huge fuselage tank (that's removable of course) that carries the bulk of the transfer fuel.
With you brother. Landed on 50 plus runways over there out of Saigon and Da Nang.
I was in the supply squadron with the POL guys who always smelled like JP4. When I was in NAM I heard about a 123 that was hit by a mortar when off loading the Diesel for the trucks. The crew including the POL guys were lost.
P
I hitched a ride on a KC-10 at McGuire AFB, NJ to Portland, OR. It was roughly five hours to fly out to the refueling racetrack pattern over the Pacific just west of Portland and Seattle. We descended to 28,000 feet to start refueling 4 -F15s and 4-F18 and gave each one 3,000 pounds and landed in Portland. About an hour later all 8 jets landed in Portland and I was fortumate to meet each one of these guys on the ground as they came thru the opns center. It was a training mission for each jet as well as aircrew training on the KC-10. The captain flying the KC-10 was a United Airlines pilot as his civilain job. It is a fantasic experience to get to meet some of these professionals. You are not going to fly from Portland non--stop and refuel 5 times enroute over the Atlantic to the mid-east unless you are a real pro. thank God Ameica has men like this willing to risk their lives for our safety. I'm retired Air Force myself and spent 5 years in Vietnam with B-52 combat operations and did that on 7 trips across the Pacific while trying to rasie 5 children. It is not easy.
Thanks for the stories and your service!
Thanks for the awesome description. Work on Kc-10 myself. Love it. Been around the world with this airframe.
Thank you for your service. I'm a military brat of a 22-yr retired E7. I would have been USAF myself, but developed T1 diabetes as a teen. I lived the military brat life though, moving all over the world with my dad's career.
Thanks for showing my old job. i was a KC-135 boom operator for 6 years and a KC-10 boom operator for 14 years. . Yes the boom method is one at a time, but with the faster fuel transfer rate, i could get i could get way more total fuel transferred to more aircraft faster than the drogue method, and that's not a shortcoming.
Kc-135 hydro at grand forks here, where was you base?
@@user-yq6ov6ow7l thank you both for your service!
I was a crew chief at Grissom AFB, for 13 years.
@@user-yq6ov6ow7l No. i was stationed at McConnell. My crew was the first one to train on the R-model in Dec 1983. With Ellsworth being the 2nd based scheduled to receive the R's, i thought they would be looking for instructors to go there so i put in for a transfer and got Castle AFB in Jan 1984, and yep, back in to the "steam jets."
We learned a lot during WWII. If you're interested in mind boggling logistics, find a book entitled, "48 Million Tons To Eisenhower" by Lt Col Randolph Leigh.
It's about the incredible supply chain effort created to fight in the ETO by US forces in World War II. Really good read.
What’s the saying?…..”Amateurs talk weapons while experts talk logistics.”
“Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars.”
-General John J. Pershing
The logistics of WWII is one of the most impressive things about WWII
In 1975, I was involved in a massive refueling operation in Alaska.we put three rubber fuel inside C130 transports. The ice caps never retreated so the barges could not take supplies to the back slopes. They called on us to transport fuel and dry cargo up there.
LOL? Who cares> 40 years ago you helped murder people in the Vietnam war? Get a life. Move on... It is really great you murdered people for my government or played a direct role in their deaths. Possibly you should re-read "The pentagon papers". Anyhow get a life. Get some new material. Rather than being happy about your actions that were responsible for the murder of people. Before you die of old age, do something amazing to help the families of the people your actions helped murder.
nice! thanks for your service
lol i read your comment and im so high i thought thats what this video was about and got disappointed when the video was not in fact about your comment lmao
"Involved" could include a multitude of sins. I'm sure people would be interested to hear your role in the operation. I certainly would.
They dropped the ramp mid flight and he decided to let a deuce rip and fly out the back. Of course he didn’t pay for the deuce to hit Mother Earth at terminal velocity over enemy territory during tensions resulting from the Cold War… As you realize that could’ve turned the Cold War hot. What with ballistic missiles being fired off at altitude and attitude towards Earth…
The design and production of some of these bladders are made at ILC Dover, Frederica, Delaware. Just down the road from where I use to live in Felton. They also produced the Apollo era spacesuits.
As an American military veteran (USN), and as a human one cannot help but be impressed and awe struck by the capabilities of our military. While other nations can do most of the things we can do; no nation in history has come even close to the scale of what we can do.
china?
@@connorgodfrey China doesn't have the air or naval transport to project worldwide, and support it.
@Connor Godfrey They are getting there but not yet. They also seem to be dependent on stealing ideas from others.
except stop towel heds with box cutters and stop a Chinese spy balloonhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Actually, Russia just proved no one can do anything we can.. No country has modern warfare capabilities like we do.
That's how my dad flew AC-119's from Dayton Ohio to Phang Rang Vietnam in 1969. I saw them when I was 13, he and 5 other planes flew through McChord. :-)
It's bonkers to think about how many people and processes take place just to make sure fuel delivery takes place in the military. You start to see where our 700 billion goes every year. Sometimes I feel like our entire society is propped up on stilts. So many industries are required to keep everything running smoothly.
That's the military industrial complex for you.
No it's very American, their society model is based on the military and it costs them dearly, to the detriment of life and social. It is true that war is much more spectacular. While health and hospitals .....
@@jeromemartin4731 democracy is expensive.
I was a supply person while in the navy, on a destroyer we carried about 20,000 spare parts. We were a fairly small ship with a 300 person crew. Just imagine an aircraft carrier with the 75 planes in it with a crew if 5,000. The parts as well as the meals. My god, what a nightmare
700 billion…pissed into the wind meanwhile people are starving and can’t heat their homes
I'm a fuel hauler, and have made jet fuel delivery. We have to abide by quality control standards in this process as well. The road transport tanker must only be used for jet fuel. Prior to loading, we must inspect the residual fuel and visually inspect the compartments. After loading, the fuel is tested on site, and all control and access points are sealed with numbered documentation before departure. The fuel is tested again before unloading. VERY strict. This goes for commercial jet fuel as well.
Yes, there can be NO Contaminents in any of that fuel or it would cause disaster to the jets using it.
Good. I got a tank of dirty gas in my truck once. I’d hate to be in a plane that acted like that truck.
You can use a non dedicated trailer for jet..
But it must be cleaned and purged before loading jet...
I used to load jet from shell in essex or BP in kent....
Delivered it for 2 years to london ciry, heathrow, gatwick, southend, luton..
Easy job.
I now bunker ships with marine gas oil 👍
Yeah, that all sounds good and such. Except when your in a C130 in some backwater. Then you take whatever fuel you can get from some pretty shady outfits and hope the filters don't clog before you get to a real base/airport.
Enjoyed the technical side of this presentation, a lot of work goes into these operations, most of which unglamorous.
by far the best informative video on the USAF . . . real good work on the video, hats off to the thousands of men and women of the USAF . . .
NY ANG uses these bladders in C-130s to deliver fuel from McMurdo Station to Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station all the time.
They was use in nam to fire fuel and water but they been know to busted open a lot
It's always good to remind the Russians how important logistics are while giving them a quick fix to the supply lines.
You mean a quick donation from a Himars, right?
No offense but the Russians just suck at this. Nothing in this video is new information or ground breaking.
@@seth34567 Fuel trucks aren't fancy at parades... ;)
Assuming Russians have similar logic....
@@RKarmaKill They seem to have plenty of vodka
Having nearly 400 large tanker aircraft is just insane. That's why the USAF air transport fleet is so flexible.
and insanely inefficient. enabled only by USA extreme GDP advantage over the world, which is disappearing. eventually we will have an expeditionary force that is extraordinarily weak at the actual line of contact
Exactly. Most Americans do not realise that the USA can't keep this up. Especially with the pressure growing from BRICS. It will be non existent in 25-40 years time
*Logistical capability will not be anywhere near the same in 25-40 years
Never knew the black bird is that massive before. The refueling really gives a better idea how big it is.
Big thanks to all working Americans that’s why our military are the best in the world.
I enjoyed this at 1.5x playback speed.
they were using bladders in the high Artic over 30 years ago when I worked for pancandian oil n gas at Rae Point. we also used em for surface fuel storage on the pack ice
Man, it seems to me like one mistake and there could be a disaster. The way they do this. Gotta give them a LOT of credit. This is no easy task.
@@trvman1 you wanna try refueling a slippery cat tractor at 40 below. there is no where safe to step. we endured it and learned to help each other. no Hero work in those conditions. we did what had to be done and did our best to ensure we all survived it. some of our cats fell thru the ice and the operators were unrecoverable.. mineral and oil development is a dangerous business and not for the faint of heart
I love it when the military performs its "Elephant Walks".👍🏻
this is why us military will ALWAYS be the best in the world. attention to details is so important.
I use to do this in the Air Force back in the 70's. We hauled to 3000 gallon bladders in a C-130 and the pump module on the back door. Ir was called bladder birds.
We shipped fuel bladders that were placed in areas in the desert for refuel stations for ground vehicles an aircraft I understand it worked like a charm
every video you upload is a gem, filled with wisdom and fun!
Being an indian we feel proud to be in C-17 fleet🎉🎉🎉
I hate to break the news, but bladder tanks date back to the KC-97 refueling tanker. (1950s). It was a modified cargo plane to haul fuel.
So nice to hear the men speak about the operations they did in these fine mashines
as a fueling manufacturing, storage, or distribution tech in the civilian world of all types of fuels from gasses, liquids, and all temps or pressures? I LOVE THIS STUFF!!
I’m an old fart now but I was fortunate to be in a position when in the Navy to take part in refueling aircraft, both delivered and received. I also did the same as a guest of the Air Force. Hats off to all those air crews.
JP-4 was phased out for JP-8 in the very late 90's 1) it was very flammable , 2) The Air Force would only need 2 fuel types in inventory, 1 - JP-8/DL-8 ( DL-8 replaced Diesel for ground vehicles/generators) and MUP (Military Unleaded Premium).
of course they need premium, works just fine on regular but they MUST have premium
@@embededfabrication4482 The actual cost of the fuel is small compared to the cost to transport it for military use. I suspect they may actually need premium for things like small drones with little high compression engines and small training aircraft absolutely need high octane fuel.
We never had premium. It was a problem for a few specially vehicles, but otherwise, we didn’t use it. The only vehicles that I recall having issues were U2 chase cars. They would run on regular, but for some reason the maintenance guys said it caused them problems.
Those were the primary grades, but there were summer and winter grades of diesel. Lots of aviation fuel varieties.
@@Iexpedite1 Where were you based at ? Beal, RAF Alconbury, Kadina AFB ? I was at both Alconbury and Beal we had MUP for the Gas vehicles at both bases 1992 - 97. That JPTS tore me up along with a few others. 2 died to cancer and my Raspatory System got messed up from the Icing Inhibitor additive to the TS.
Never got a ride along in the chase cars tomany people getting the lotto for the ride. Was never lucky enough to win. 😪
@@michaelernst3731
No, I worked around the U2 at Istres, France and later Osan, Korea. The jets left Istres and moved to Aviano for a few months. I followed them to Aviano.
At Aviano, my boss had easy access to chase car rides. The rides were used to build relationships with the host base leadership. He went several times with different important people.
Once he had schmoozed a relationship with the host base, ride along spots opened up for the people on his team. I just never asked to go...
I had a guy that worked for me go on an incentive ride on an F-16. Now I would have jumped at the chance to do that, but I never got the opportunity.
The incentive flight happened to be fragged to do some dissimilar combat training with a German F-4. So instead of just flying around for a hour or so, he got to do some actual combat maneuvers against a foreign military aircraft.
I've spent some quality time with JPTS. I don't have any issues from it...yet.
Thanks for spending the time to create ad share this content awareness
Excellent video tour of a miniscule portion of U.S. Military complexity. 👌🏻
Really appreciated the way of supper working. Thanks Brave warriors and scientific advances method. Thanks
We did this on the C-130 numerous times in theatre and we also transported heavy construction equipment to dirt strips so they could make runways capable for landing "C-17s" 😎.
RED HORSE
Let me guess…..ab201
The C-130 and C-17 need different sized bladders, right?
Does the whole plane smell like fuel with those bladders onboard?
favorite story to tell?
@@ddegn looks like a very little leakage when they detach the hose, probably smells like your average gas station 4:23 (notice they look away to avoid fuel spewing into their eyes lol)
I was a crew chief on this plane. They are fun capabilities are pretty impressive. Just their ramp can hold as much as the entire c-141.
Chief,
You might be correct in that the -141 had a normal cargo load of 72,000#. It could carry 89,000# in 24 specific aircraft built to carry the Minuteman and Polaris missiles. BUT, in the -141, I carried items like Navy propeller shafts that are too long to fit in the -17. Both aircraft were / are good aircraft but, it did take a lot of work to bring the -17 up to it's design weight-range specs. The -141 did that on flight number one. That spec was 50K of load, carried non-stop from Kansas to Germany, lad on roadways 50 feet wide and 9000 ft long, ERO, depart straight ahead to the UK with IFR reserves. Not bad for an aircraft designed and built in the early 60's. Oh, my credentials... C-141 FEAC with 6600 hours in type... Both A and B.
I started out on the C-141. Don’t have a clue what it could hold.
Love the APS guy kneeling doing pointless hand signal and not helping with the pallets. I’ve helped load cargo on the bird a lot during missions and I’ve never seen someone do that. Once the kloader is in you don’t have to do what he was doing.
Hey, camera time for John Wayne.
@@snakerstran9101 it’s just silly lol. But I guess you’d really only know he isn’t actually helping the team unless you’ve helped load cargo yourself and worked on these planes.
That's so weird because when I was in the airforce, we had to purge those same bladders with water for I think 30 minutes.. and then purge it with an air hose for 6 hours before folding them up and putting them on that exact aircraft
Were did the water go?
War is soooooo incredibly wasteful.
But necessary!
@@garychandler8521yes
Make peace not war!
Use to do this all the time with 2 bladders in an ATR in canada's north for heating fuel etc, was always a good time lol if it works it works!
C17s with a HAHO (high altitude high opening)delivery and smaller prop planes with a LALO (low altitude low opening) delivery, those were fun because we would set up "goal posts" for the pilots to aim the pallets at.
Never seen the process before 👍
As a line service technician. We also serve the military and have to di those test daily, weekly and once a month.
I slept traveled across oceans as well as jumped out of them,amazing machines.
Everybody likes the fighter jets but I like the BIG jets. The US military has all the coolest planes.
This is excellent editing and sound scaping.
So proud of those men and women in the US military.
Bonjour,
Merci c'est un beau reportage très intéressant.
You know what a country is upto when they have 750 military bases in 80 foreign countries
I have always dreamed of a mid Atlantic, mid pacific.. etc flying drone tanks that can remain stationary even if it were to be powered by nuclear energy (to be able to function for years and years) !
Like in that movie “Stealth.” They showed a huge airship that stayed aloft for long periods to deliver fuel.
@@keirfarnum6811 Reminds me of that too. If that thing was real, then it's super cool.
Liquids are heavy. It costs a lot of money to constantly hold all that weight vertically up in a fairly stationery location. This is why rockets require so much more robust fuel producing exponentially more thrust to lift vertically up against gravity. It's much more efficient to fly horizontally using wings in air to create lift.
That’s an Extremely Scary load, we have the KC 130 here in Knoxville
Bravo aux ingénieurs pour le magnifique boulot 🙏🙏🙏
Bravo aux ingénieurs pour le magnifique boulot . Bravo aux ingénieurs pour le magnifique boulot .
Some Aeroplanes like the E-3 Sentry C-130J RAF versions can have both the flying boom and probe method. On the E-3 Sentry right side probe while having Flying Boom. For newer tanker Aeroplanes the boom operator is placed on the cockpit where the old engineer position is if applicable.
They were fueling SR71's air to air before 1991, we could always tell when they were going to take off in Okinawa because the tankers would leave a hour prior to get to altitude. I was in the SeaBees near Kadena Airbase 1987. As I understood it the SR71 leaked until the skin got up to temp and needed to refuel shortly after take off??
Absolutely. Even with titanium skin the expansion of the panels at supersonic speed was too great to allow for a complete seal of the fuel tanks at ambient temps. It didn't stop leaking practically until it was supersonic. Wild machine.
Fun fact: thermal expansion was not the only reason why leaked so so much, but because the whole aircraft was just a gas tank with a cockpit and a camera. The fuel that it used was especially made so it was also the coolant and it was also used as oil lubricant. No separate tanks the whole thing was one massive gas tank the skin of the plane was the only thing holding together hence why it leaked so much.
@@Chris08TT not completely accurate. Engine oil was a solid at room temperature if I recall correctly, it was not the fuel. Fuel was used as a coolant for certain portions of the airframe. I watched my share of Blackbird takeoffs at RAF Mildenhall in the 1980s. Cool plane. when it went int afterburner for takeoff, you could feel your sternum vibrate if you were close enough (and, yes I was, several times).
Very useful and important documentary and information, ever seen as a US citizen 🇺🇲
God bless the US
most of the jet fuel is shipped via ship...not plane. What they are showing is for different short term things
Our operation was to fly all of the fuels needed for the winter at the four bases on the back north slope of Alaska. This included all aircraft fuels and diesel and gas. The polar ice cap never retreated far enough for the barges to get through.
Truly a great power. In terms of weapons as well as logistics, there is hardly any other country in the world that can match.
and go down like a sinking ship 🛳 🛳
Great video, can’t wait to see the size of the batteries when they go green, 😛😝 Not thought that one out yet , eh. 😊
Excellent presentation. Thank you!
Gracias fluctúa me imaginaba tankes metálicos o plásticos como los de ahora en vehículos. Saludos
The absolutely insane amount of fuel used by our country is mind blowing. I don't understand how we haven't run out of fuel already. I'm scared for the future. If we can't move Tons of fuel to remote bases, how will we defend from a far.
You take over local fuel/oil sources where the war is.
There's a reason we've barely tapped our own vast petroleum reserve resources.
Once the democrats move everything into solar and wind power, then there will nothing to worry about. Planes will be able to refuel off the wind and the sun. I guess no more night missions.
I herd somewhere that America has about 800 years of oil reserve. We just don't have the equipment to bring it out.
Walked through a C-5 Galaxy in the early 2000's at an airshow at the Bangor international airport.
I was a pol guy in vietnam in 1970 and yes we filled and delivered fuel all over the country in everything from c7a caribou c123 c130 ch47s in rubber bladders of all sizes
Phantastic... Enough for 8 Jets for one hour more on air...
Air Force fuels guy here. It aint and hasnt bean JP-4 in 35yrs. Airforce has been delivering JP-8 or JAA now for a long time. JP-4 goes back to the early 80's.
Yep. 130 FE here. When i was in school we had an instructor walk up behind us and flip his lit cigar into a 5 gal bucket that was half full of JP 7. All 7 of us dove for cover and he just stood there laughing his @ss off! Jet fuel is FLAMMABLE, NOT COMBUSTIBLE!!!
This all looked pretty good, but they didn’t talk about hot pitting. Planes land and with engines screaming. You walk in under them and refuel. It is a method designed to rapidly turn jets.
Used hot refueling on the A-10s at England AFB Louisiana during exercises.
That has to cost serious money, but what an operation.
Cost isn’t important when it’s military. You want speed and quality, price be damned.
God bless the United States Military. Thank you all for your service.
F ing genius USA military logistics again. Big love from Australia.
My goodness America is gorges, and American military is beautiful!
Great video! Funnily enough, it reminded me of an episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer wants to design an storage bladder for oil tankers to prevent maritime oil spills
It's crazy how they transport all that fuel in essentially reinforced zip lock bags.
Bladders were used in Vietnam to transport fuel.
Thanks for sharing...
Very Informative...
เป็นวีดีโอที่มีคุณภาพ
Have you ever wondered how a jet holds fuel period? Giant rubber bladders in the wings and mid section. Not a giant leap that you might transport it that way.
or there is no fuel in the wings
The C-17 produced by the same company that produced the latest model of the Boeing 737. This aircraft had many problems, but the military threw enough money and changes at it to make it work for a while.
The C-17 was built by McDonnell Douglas, which was acquired by Boeing.
Boeing builds the 737.
McDonnell Douglas designed and built the C-17. After the C-17 was designed and most of them built, Boeing merged or acquired McDonnell Douglas so they became the same company AFTER the C-17 was produced.
We used to fly diesel in 1000 litre IBCs strapped down in cargo 727s into dirt and gravel strips in Africa every day. Nothing beats it for keeping the pulse up!
Nothings more terrifying taking off and smelling jet fuel ...a leak! Loadmaster!
I can think of something more terrifying taking off and smelling jet fuel, and that would be smelling the smoke and flames of burning jet at 30k feet!
My favorite part was the multi tool being used to pry open the hose clamp, I felt that.
At $40. to $80. per gallon depending on final air base.
If you think about it does cost a lot to fly 40 tons of fuel 7,000 miles. The further you have to go the more it costs.
Having liquid fuel measured in pounds is unfathomable. I can think in litres and gallons, but pounds, I'm out in the wilderness. It must be an American thing.
Fuel volume expands and contracts depending on altitude and temperature, but mass doesn't change (unless you go to orbit lol)
Gasoline, 6#/gal., water, 8.35#/gal. I don’t remember the rest, they’re all in the Loadmaster’s checklist.
Fuel weight stays the same and that’s critical so aircraft don’t go beyond max take off weights
They have to know the weight of everything that goes into a plane.
@@whjerts And where it is on the plane. Loadmaster fills out a form DD365F.
The c17's wings generate so much lift. That inflight reverse thrust is sometimes necessary to decrease elevation.
The B52 raid in the Gulf War demonstrated the logistical power of the US. The bombers took off from the states, flew to Saudi, launched their weapons, then returned to the states. I believe it took 57 refueling tanker ops. And then the build up prior to the war in Desert Shield was equally impressive. The old saying "armatures focus on tactics, professionals focus on logistics" is how we operate. Worrying about tank battles is not as important as worrying about keeping them fueled. The guys on the ground will do what they have to do, just get them what they need to do it has always been key
Good God, C-17 burnt twice as much fuel as it transports. 35546 gallons to transport 3x6000 gallons
The plane burns 21K pounds of fuel per flight hour...not gallons. There's 6.75 pounds per gallon, so roughly 3111 gal.
Weve been doing this for at least 20 years 👌
We had them on the C-123K, C-130 and probably C-141 in Vietnam
Not C-141’s. I crewed on those & C-123’s. Did bladders on them in the ‘60’s, so 60+ years.
I feel like it woulda been faster and more efficient to just reverse a tanker trailer onto the plane and disconnect it from the cab.
No trailer legs can cope with fuel sloshing about in a trailer though..
I had the pleasurer to be on the documentary crew for Douglas on the C-17 from laying of the "keel" to the fist flight. it is an awesome plane!
Roughly 10k gallons, not very efficient in my opinion
It’s ok us tax payers pay for it not them
Interesting in technical and strategical terms. I question the efficiency of these operations, as 40 tons of fuel can potentially fill the fuel tanks of only four FA-18s.
I furthermore wonder, why they make such a huge story about transporting fuel instead of just filling the tanks of the "transport" aircrafts at their most, and release part of the aircrafts fuel at destination...
J k o
I think that you need this capability to sustain an expeditionary force that is deployed where you haven't prepositioned resource stockpiles which include fuel.
The aircraft leave the ground with all the fuel they can hold or land with. Where they are landing or taking off from has a lot to do with their load out.
I worked a site in Central America. It was in the middle of the jungle. No roads just trees. The Army needed a helicopter refueling point there. They built a makeshift runway, dropped a double wall tank on the ground, and kept fuel in the tank with C130 deliveries. The Army was chasing drug runners with helicopters. They needed fuel where they needed fuel.
It’s very inefficient, but the goal isn’t always efficiency. There are times when efficiency takes a back seat to capability.
@@Iexpedite1 I got in on that with C130 off loads in Central America. Usually a bladder like shown here was laid out on the ground near the end of the runway. We taxied up, grabbed some rough looking hose connected to the bladder, drug it to and connected to the 130's own fuel supply and gravity drained what fuel we could afford to give up. Keeping in mind having enough fuel to get back was priority. That bladder fuel was mostly used in smaller amounts in ground equipment and small acft flying local.
The bladders aren't really feasible to load larger acft. Most times those acft get fuel from overland tanker trucks or fuel ships at bigger bases.
New challenge keeping aviation fuel guzzling Abrams running.
More oil to aircraft = More freedom
Or they could air drop replaceable batteries, and origami solar panels. Then the tanks could even have rail guns, and laser weapons.
Burning fuel to transport fuel....👌
And?
No transport is free.
I remember being shot at inside one of these…it’s so sturdy and strong barely felt the vibrations of rounds exploding outside the windows !
It's amazing that the Earth pumps out so much jet fuel,you would think the wells would be DRY LOOKING AT THIS.
Fuel burn is 750 gal/hour for each engine. Holy diesel fuel Batman. I wish I were rich enough to afford to fly that .
I've wondered how much all the Jet-A1 actually cost, that were consumed by all the Private jets that were in Davos this past couple of weeks... and I am so grateful to know that it was my CO2 tax, that sponsored all of that, and that it was used so eloquently and effectively in preventing and ultimately stopping our planet's climate from ever changing again, in the not to distant future.
I currently think it's $3 a gallon including pumping cost.
But why don't they support homosexual special rights ?