The prime limiting factor are the number of booms in the air to handle the surges of fighters trying to cycle through the tanker cells. In this case all of the extra gas in the world does no good, particularly since the receivers are the limitation (can usually only take 3000lb/min)….

Yet somehow, hose-and-drogue refuelling isn’t even seriously considered :rolleyes:

[QUOTE=’568 crew;1540523]Work is progressing well, i’ve deleted most of the stories…[/QUOTE]
Remember, the more you delete, the better your work gets.

He’s gotta make money somehow right? Since when has generating controversy ever failed to sell a paper? I’m still waiting for him to tell us about any new fighter (new, not recycled Hornets) that wasn’t late or over budget.

If Bill Sweetman really wanted to make money, he’d be a marketing/communications consultant for LM. There is far more money to be made in spinning information than there is in actually filtering through it to get to the news.

Lockheed would love to have someone with a journalistic reputation as Sweetman on their payroll. Even if it would confuse the LM-cheerleaders.

you will probably find its a 1000 page report that the news paper picked 10 sentences to form its story

You instead read the 1000 pages to inform yourself, right? Or does your newspaper actually give you the full report rather than an actual article? Because in the latter case, I can start teaching journalism in your neck of the woods.

But on the other hand, with you saying it’s “probably a 1000 page report” I somehow don’t think you’ve read it either, or have you?

As far as I know the guys were simply listening to civilian ATC chatter.

But Seahawk, if you remember how well a certain program for a re-engined and re-cockpitted Hercules was run… I wouldn’t trust Lockheed to turn the Jerkules into a true Jerk-haul-ass.

Mismanaged as the A400M obviously is, at least it shows some ambition. Can’t really say that about a country depending on either a pimped 1950s transport, an about-to-be-updated 1960s transport, or an enlarged 1970s prototype. Which is rather odd, considering the expeditionary nature of that latter country’s military.

The C-130H might well have been the best tactical airlifter in the 1960s and 1970s, but with today’s obese military it’s just too cramped. You simply can’t fit a Humvee in a Jeep-transporter.

Flexible and adaptable as the C-130 was, were it to remain the “the world’s best tactical airlifter” it should have been given a new, wider fuselage twenty years ago. Now it’s just too cramped.

As for replacing the C-5A… well, I guess that any large aeroplane spending most of it’s time u/s on the tarmac or in the hangar will do. Unless you absolutely, positively need something in your OrBat which you can’t rely on and have to rent An-124s for instead.