Photo: Airbus
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) is not only the largest military organization of its kind in the world, but it also is one of the most advanced. For instance, just consider the fact no other nation on this Earth has an aerial refueling capacity as large as that of the U.S.
The nation currently operates around 700 tanker airplanes, a number that is likely larger than what all the other nations have to offer combined. Even with the planned cut to just 450 of them, America will still lead the pack in this respect.
But there is one thing the USAF can't brag about at the moment, and that's the ability to use automatic air-to-air refueling (A3R) across its fleet. That essentially means a fully automatic boom that doesn't require constant adjustments from an operator to keep the alignment between its tip and the receiver receptacle on the aircraft in need of fuel.
The system is meant to reduce the workload on human operators and reduce the risk of errors – although to be fair, I don’t remember of any major air-to-air refueling incident ever taking place.
The USAF will get such an ability on a larger scale once the LMXT tanker is accepted into the fleet. The plane is a Lockheed Martin conversion of the Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT).
This plane has been around for a while in the service of other nations, and it even managed to recently put an aerial fighting force you rarely hear about ahead of the USAF in one key aspect.
We learned this week that back in August 2023, the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and Airbus completed a three-week test campaign of the MRTT and the nation's fighter plane fleet in a bid to make Singapore “the first Air Force in the world to have a boom automatic refueling capability with all of its receivers.”
Granted, the fleet of planes the RSAF operates is not as large as that of the U.S., and presently comprises mostly F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons, but the achievement is impressive nonetheless, and will also open the doors for other nations to join the A3R race.
The breakthrough was announced after no less than 500 automated wet and dry contacts were performed between the MRTT and the two types of fighter planes while “covering the whole operational AAR envelope in different weather conditions.”
As it stands the Airbus MRTT can be paired with pretty much the entire fleet of existing military aircraft, including the two fighter jets mentioned above, but also more pretentious machines like the AWACS and the Eurofighter Typhoon. As a twist, an A330 of this kind can also refuel another MRTT.
The U.S. will get its LMXT version of the plane by the end of the decade.
But there is one thing the USAF can't brag about at the moment, and that's the ability to use automatic air-to-air refueling (A3R) across its fleet. That essentially means a fully automatic boom that doesn't require constant adjustments from an operator to keep the alignment between its tip and the receiver receptacle on the aircraft in need of fuel.
The system is meant to reduce the workload on human operators and reduce the risk of errors – although to be fair, I don’t remember of any major air-to-air refueling incident ever taking place.
The USAF will get such an ability on a larger scale once the LMXT tanker is accepted into the fleet. The plane is a Lockheed Martin conversion of the Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT).
This plane has been around for a while in the service of other nations, and it even managed to recently put an aerial fighting force you rarely hear about ahead of the USAF in one key aspect.
We learned this week that back in August 2023, the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and Airbus completed a three-week test campaign of the MRTT and the nation's fighter plane fleet in a bid to make Singapore “the first Air Force in the world to have a boom automatic refueling capability with all of its receivers.”
Granted, the fleet of planes the RSAF operates is not as large as that of the U.S., and presently comprises mostly F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons, but the achievement is impressive nonetheless, and will also open the doors for other nations to join the A3R race.
The breakthrough was announced after no less than 500 automated wet and dry contacts were performed between the MRTT and the two types of fighter planes while “covering the whole operational AAR envelope in different weather conditions.”
As it stands the Airbus MRTT can be paired with pretty much the entire fleet of existing military aircraft, including the two fighter jets mentioned above, but also more pretentious machines like the AWACS and the Eurofighter Typhoon. As a twist, an A330 of this kind can also refuel another MRTT.
The U.S. will get its LMXT version of the plane by the end of the decade.
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