Israeli Air Force Hot Refueling
The Jerusalem Post is reporting here that the Israeli Air Force is practicing new aircraft refueling procedures to maximize the aircraft fuel load at takeoff.
Fuel nozzles are traditionally disconnected from fighter aircraft while they are still parked in hangers and before they are rolled out to the runway, where they usually wait for several minutes before takeoff and while burning fuel. The new protocol includes keeping fuel trucks on the runway, having ground personnel reattach the nozzle and fuel the aircraft to the maximum fullness, disconnecting seconds before takeoff.
“We understand that many of our threats and challenges require us to develop a long-range capability,” one senior IAF officer explained. “Part of our preparation includes knowing how to fuel our aircraft so they can have as much fuel as possible.”
Please read the entire article for additional information.
Analysis. This is a procedure waiting for an accident. We did almost the same procedure when I was stationed at Ramstein Air Base. We called it “hot pit” refueling. Except that the refueling was done after landing in a specially designed area with all the appropriate facilities for grounding the aircraft. The refueling was done from a swing out arm and not a truck.
I don’t know how much fuel an F-100 engine burns at idle but a J-79 burns 21 pounds per minute. (Fuel in aircraft is measured in pounds for weight and balance purposes.) So an F-4 would burn 42 pounds per minute from startup to beginning of take off roll. Four hundred and twenty pounds in ten minutes is not significant. Eight hundred and forty pound in twenty minutes against a total fuel load of 17,600 pounds is significant. That is eight and one half minutes of flying time at the average consumption of 100 pounds per minute in cruise mode. Considering the complexity of any strike on Iran originating from Israel I can understand why the IAF is even considering such a procedure.
When you consider the number of aircraft that Israel must launch to get an effective strike on Iran, that is a lot of Jet-A to replace with aerial refueling. Every additional thousand pounds the aircraft takes off with is a thousand pounds that they don’t have to take off the tankers. This is not a significant problem for the USAF given the number of tankers available. It is a significant problem for the IAF with its four KC-707 tankers. It is 700 nautical miles from the west coast of the Persian Gulf to Tehran. Even in the relatively benign environment over Iran it is still two refuelings in and at least one out (more likely three in and two out) even at the medium to high altitudes the strikes must fly due to the characteristics of the bunker busters they are using.
That’s a lot of gas to fly 24 F-15Is and some larger number of F-16Is to Tehran and back. That’s not a lot of time over target or combat time either. Then again, Israel just displayed a very large drone that doesn’t need refueling to make it to Tehran.
Tags: Iran, Iran: nuclear program