“[Edit: I actually looked up the specs on the buddy store used by the Super Hornet, so corrections follow]

The F/A-18E/F carries its buddy store pod on the centerline, and 4 480-gallon external tanks on the wings.

The F-35C has two plumbed wing hardpoints. I will assume that the F-35C will carry the same Cobham buddy store that the F/A-18E/F does, along with a 480-gallon tank on the other side.

The buddy store has an internal fuel capacity of 300 gallons. I had originally expressed concern about load asymmetry if carrying only one external tank. The buddy pack weighs 800lbs empty, plus 2025 lbs of fuel, while a 480-gallon tank weighs about 3300 lbs full. So that should not be an issue.

F-35C internal fuel 19,145 lbs plus 5265 lbs external (1×300 gal plus 1×480 gal) == 24,410 lbs total fuel carried.

F/A-18E internal fuel 14,400 lbs plus 14,985 lbs external (1 x 300 plus 4x480gal) == 29,385 lbs total fuel carried.

So basically the F-35C as a tanker has about 5/6 the capacity of an F/A-18E. I see no reason it can’t be done, it’s mostly a matter of funding and certification..”

That’s a reasonable assessment.

If anyone remembers, the French used the Etendard and Super Etendard as buddy-tankers with their comparably anemic engine power and airframe limitations for years. A-4s pioneered the buddy-tanking concept with the U.S. Navy in the 1960s…….A-7s and legacy Hornets followed on in the 70s and 90s. All had less combined fuel capacity than the F-35….as well has being older and having lesser engines. I can’t imagine the F-35 having any serious issue in this respect.

The U.S. Navy may well have conducted no studies of the F-35 as a buddy-tanker because they have the Super Hornet which does this extremely well now and for the foreseeable next 20 years. But, the F-35 will outlive the SH and something will be needed to patch that gap after the SH’s are gone. No doubt the F-35s will be tasked with buddy-tanking at some point in the future so the RN may have an edge here when it comes to making the F-35 a good buddy platform.

The RN is extremely resourceful and intuitive when it comes to matters of these, so, I give them a “nod” here.

Further, the “mother” of all carrier-based tankers, the KA-3D, was an airplane of the Cold War. AJ-1 Savages were reworked as carrier-based tankers for the new AS-3 Skywarrior carrier-based nuclear bombers in the 1950s and found to be too slow and ungainly for mating with the A-3s. The Navy ordered newer A-3s with better engines for the nuclear delivery role and the original, earlier ordered A-3s, were relegated to the role of tanking (and later, EW) for the next batch of A-3s. KA-3Ds were around to provide tanking to later models of the A-3 flying serious strategic and nuclear missions into the USSR. As the concept of serious nuclear missions into the USSR from carriers waned in the 1980s the KA-3d began to disappear. Viking and Intruder variations to the role emerged.

Buddy-tanking is very alive and well. SH’s, Rafales, USMC Harriers do it everyday.

Okay…..(think Dr. Evil) Everyone needs to put down their bowl of crack and step away from the discussion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeinTX
I would go with the F-111 since it was an airplane nations like Australia should not have had.

Is that supposed to be an insult? We paid for the development of the Australian version, we paid for the aircraft. Why shouldn’t we have gotten them?

The exact opposite quite obviously. The F-111 was a truly advanced, expensive and exclusive aircraft in the Western arsenal. Really no other like it. The Brits couldn’t/didn’t buy them and they were proportionally larger and wealthier than Australia of the time. The Buc and Tornado were tactical strike aircraft rather than the true intermediate (even strategic in the case of the FB/-G) bomber class aircraft. The Mirage IV was a contemporary in that class but much more limited and specialized to a pure Euro nuke role.

Considering how many operated Su-24 I find your statement untenable.

First, I wouldn’t really consider the -24 a direct F-111 counterpart. They look similar and all, but. As often happened the Mig and Sukhoi beaureaus would be pitted to design and build a Proposal and a Proposal “+”……Mig-17/19 vs. Su-7….Mig-21 vs. Su-9/11….Mig-23 vs. Su-17…..Mig-23BN/-27 vs. Su-24, etc. Each were tasked (generally with Mig the smaller, simpler, and lighter while Sukhoi with the bigger, heavier, more complex aircraft) to come up with different scales and iterations of a general design within some broad general guidelines. The F-111 from the outset of the TFX program was designed and intended capable of a strategic role with aerial refueling and nuke capacity via SAC. Many have likened the Su-24 to a Tornado that ate its carrots and Wheaties as a baby and I generally concur. It was designed, built and deployed as a theater, not intermediate, tactical aircraft serving as a “one-up” in range and payload over the other Soviet alternatives in the -23BN/-27 or Fitter series. The Mig-23BN/-27 were battlefield support aircraft with the Fencer being an “extended” battlefield support aircraft. It had little to none strategic role in Soviet doctrine nor in use with client states.

More states had Fencers? Really? What have they ever done with them? Where are they today? Who’s worried about them? How many are left?

Et cetera, et cetera, and so on…………..

The legacy -5As are now 40 years old and getting expensive. The 50 extra C-5Bs built in the 1980s are a bit of a different story.

The next KC, whatever it may be although I prefer the KC-30, will carry more cargo and do it better than ther current tanker mix.

The C-5 has become a “speciality” carrier used in rare situations…….you aren’t going to move an armored division (vehicles, personnel, arms, supplies, etc.) with a fleet of C-5s in any reasonable amount of time to an amenable zone. Not gonna happen.

As with the An-124, outsized transport is a rare and contractable thing for certain situations. Is it nice to have? Yeah. Is it necessary for 97& of military ops? No.

Bad ideas on both fronts.

First, tankers are big aerial delivery trucks by nature……not slinky, stealthy platforms. They need to carry and off-load as much material as possible as quickly as economically feasible. A B-2 tanker would be just about the worst idea for a tanking platform one could conceive……..small……expensive…..liimited. It could neither carry enough fuel for itself or any number of receivers, do so economically, nor do so in any capacity other than in a extraordinarily limited and costly fashion.

A “stealth” tanker of the B-2 mold is a non-starter. Imagine firing the NG line back up to produce 10 “KB-2” tankers…………$500m large apiece for an airplane that would be extremely limited and rarely used. Going nowhere.

What would they support? Modern UCAVs aren’t good at ATA tanking and are to some degree dispensible. Cruise missiles perform a good degree of the early missions in any modern op and they are only being improved.

As for a B-2 derived EW platform. One of the primary roles of EW aircraft is to elicit the reaction of an air defense system in order to gauge and respond to it. They are, essentially, bait waiting for the defenses to bite upon. An LO airplane, today, does not get the attention that an EW airplane needs in order to ID and strike anti-air locations. It’s a dirty job.

So, in both areas, it’s bad idea with little potential use. It’s now been 20 years since the B-2 first flew and the world around it has advanced tremnedously around it. It’s original job has evaporated……….it’s technology has been far advanced……..it’s costs for the return are nearing prohibitive.

More of the same doing marginal jobs are not worth the money. Pure fantasy where they should be.

That said, if Japan wants the F-22 that bad………….They need to make a “strong” case and to fork out a lot of money. Really, its in her court…..

Ed Zachary. Even if an approved “export” version of the F-22 were cleared by Congress………..it would be quite a while from now and any potential buyer involved would need to singularly support the extension of the production line to do so. How many months/years are Japan or South Korea or Australia or Israel prepared to pay for supporting an idle line and work force until their few dozen units can be produced? Not realistic.

I thought Japan considered the Typhoon to be more viable to their needs.

While I originally considered this a serious position, Japan now seems to have floated that option as mostly a bartering chit against the F-22. The Japanese want something truly more advanced and from a more reliable supplier than, excuse me, Europe from whom they have had no serious armaments transactions in decades. The Pacific realm welds Japan with the U.S. seriously and understandably.

Speaking of which, has there been any news lately about Japan’s own ATD-X Shinshin project?

No, other than pics of a wood/plastic model in a hangar. No funding from the Japanese MOD or outside buyers of note.

Absolutely true. If it’s offered for sale to Japan it would also have to be offered to Korea, Australia and Israel as well.

Aye. Once any notion of an F-22 for export is realized then there would be a clamouring of any interested to get the exact for their needs……Israel uses F-15s for all-purpose roles while Japan uses them as pure AD………Australia in between along with S.K. What gives there? Thus, further negotiations about variants and what can or can’t be exported all while the F-22 line is getting shuttered in the process unless they can pay a bunch of people and a production process to lay idle and wait for them.

At the end of the day none of those nations need or really want the F-22. The Japanese and Koreans are merely willy wagging at each other. No one in Australia who has a clue thinks they need and can afford it and the Israelis know that the Saudis, Kuwaitis and perhaps Egyptians will eventually by flying F-35s and they want something better.

Good Lord, nhampton is on a roll tonight.

The F-35 will be delivered with the range of an F-15 while having vastly more advanced radar, weapons capability, crew awareness, and LO qualities. It is generationally more capable than the F-16A/Ds/F-18A/Ds/F-15A/Bs that it is replacing by leaps and bounds.

I, as an American, have zero trouble with it being the primary aerial defense of the CONUS………which it will be. I have no problem with being the primary tactical manned strike airplane within the next 20 years for all services. None. It does more better and farther than any airplane since the F-4 Phantom for the money.

Always looked at the F-2 as more a naval support strike-fighter…….anti-shipping, naval air defense, so on. Maybe not, though, I’m not sure what time they spend training for general ground attack missions.

First, as mentioned above, not sure in the NKs have a warhead they can put on any of their missiles. Might be a moot point right now.

Second, I don’t know if the Japanese have the resources to independently detect and target all of the installations and mobile launchers in real time that NK may have.

Third, a small strike package of F-2s being supported by all of the JASDF’s -767 tankers on hand would not be big enough, pack enough weapons, or be able to hit anywhere near all of the suspected targets with effect.

I don’t think it would be a viable effort at all and would only result in an incredible escalation of the situation that needs to just be left alone.

The Tornado with swing wings and turbofans did the same job at 40% lower weight.

The TSR.2 was certainly an interesting airplane that might still be flying in regular service today. But, I think we too often “idolize” a project and convey too much “what might have been” onto it rather than taking a rational look at the situation then and hence.

B-70? What a striking machine whose cancellation seriously riled SAC………but it would have been largely unuseable in it’s designed role by the early 1970s.

B-1A? Again, great looking airplane but one that was being lapsed by technology before it could evolve into the B-1B. What if the money spent on the -1A/B had been diverted to the ATB program underway at the time and we had gotten 232 B-2s beginning in the mid-1980s?

F-14? Sexy airplane that became a movie star. But, what if a fraction of the money for it had been spent on upgrading the F-4 to accept the AWG-54 radar and the Phoenix missile? It wasn’t the size, speed, or lines of the F-14 that the Russians worried about…….it was the radar/missile combo. A heck of a lot cheaper option for getting that radar/missile combo in the air would have been modified/new F-4s accepting them and flying well into the 1990s.

The point, in the end, the Tornado (and the Buccaneer before/during it) were the really ideal airplanes for the times considering how things worked out.

What would the TSR.2 ultimately have done? By the late 1960’s the U.K. had sided on SLBMs as its primary strategic vehicle…..the TSR.2 was at best an intermediate aircraft. At this same time, the U.K.’s overseas commitments and commands were shrinking seriously. As the 1970s ran, Britain’s primary military commitment became support of NATO rather than overseas ops in imperial possessions.

Just my thoughts, but by the early-mid 1970s, whatever TSR.2 production there was would have been curtailed as their role as intermediate strike airplane was replaced by theater tactical types. Those that remained would have worked as purely reconnaisance types with the remainder being retired to fund newer tactical types.