In this configuration the MV 22 would be able to refuel fighters (F 15E, F 16C/D, A 10A) in CAS missions or even air interdiction missions from USAF, as well as the U.S. Army’s helicopters equipped with probe refueling.

The USAF’s fixed-wing aircraft, including F-15E, F-16C/D, A-10A, are fitted only for boom/receptacle refueling, while this MV-22 kit is for probe/drogue refueling only.

They are two completely different and incompatible systems, with very different hardware.

This explains the difference: Air Force Aerial Refueling Methods: Flying Boom versus Hose-and-Drogue

Some people are just too ignorant.

The MV-22 is now fully operational in over 12 USMC squadrons, having replaced over 2/3 of the CH-46s in the USMC inventory. This means that over 100 MV-22s are in everyday USMC use… and they have had no worse of a flight/accident record (on a per 1000 flight-hours basis) than any other USMC aircraft!

And to answer your supposed question: They aren’t going to… the same way the USN’s & USMC’s KA-3Bs, KA-6Ds, KS-3As, KC-130s, and all the other tactical aircraft fitted with buddy-refueling capability have NOT refueled USAF aircraft in the 50 years they have been operated.

This is purely for USMC/USN/possible RN use only (and for ano other nations who want the ability to refuel “probe & drogue” aircraft with a tactical vertical-lift transport.

Note that the fuel bladder and hose/reel unit is field-removable to allow the aircraft easily be switched between refuelling and transport roles, and back again at a forward operating base or aboard ship.

Lovely photos and updates but i have to ask why does the mechanic go up with the pilot on a first restoration flight.I would’ve thought for safety’s sake the fewer on board if problems do arise the better.

Some pilots think that if the mechanic is to fly in the aircraft he would do a better job (since his own life is on the line), while us mechanics just want to fly in the aircraft every chance we can get.

Yep… the early US manned space program used military missiles to launch the manned capsules.

Two types of rockets were used for Project Mercury. The first two of the six flights with an astronaut on board used a Redstone rocket. The four manned flights that orbited Earth used an Atlas rocket. Both of these rockets were originally designed as missiles for the United States military.

The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, designed for NASA’s Project Mercury, was the first American manned space booster. It was used for six sub-orbital Mercury flights from 1960–61; culminating with the launch of the first, and 11 weeks later, the second American (and the second and third humans) in space.

A member of the Redstone rocket family, it was derived from the U.S. Army’s Redstone ballistic missile and the first stage of the related Jupiter-C launch vehicle; but to man-rate it, the structure and systems were modified to improve safety and reliability.

The PGM-11 Redstone was the first large American ballistic missile. A short-range surface-to-surface rocket, it was in active service with the U.S. Army in West Germany from June 1958 to June 1964 as part of NATO’s Cold War defense of Western Europe. It was the first missile to carry a live nuclear warhead, first detonated in a 1958 Pacific Ocean weapons test, with two tests occurring over a period of 12 days.

A direct descendant of the German V-2 rocket, the missile was the foundation for the Redstone rocket family, It was developed by a team of predominantly German rocket engineers relocated to the United States after World War II as part of Operation Paperclip. Redstone’s prime contractor was the Chrysler Corporation.[1]

For its role as a field artillery theater ballistic missile, Redstone earned the moniker “the Army’s Workhorse”. It was retired by the U.S. in 1964, though in 1967 a surplus Redstone helped launch Australia’s first satellite.

The Atlas LV-3B, Atlas D Mercury Launch Vehicle or Mercury-Atlas Launch Vehicle, was a man-rated expendable launch system used as part of the United States Project Mercury to send astronauts into low Earth orbit. It was derived from the SM-65D Atlas missile, and was a member of the Atlas family of rockets.

Nine LV-3Bs were launched, two on unmanned suborbital test flights, three on unmanned orbital test flights, and four with manned Mercury spacecraft.

The SM-65 Atlas was the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed and deployed by the United States. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by Convair Division of General Dynamics at the Kearny Mesa assembly plant north of San Diego, California. Atlas became operational as an ICBM in October 1959 and was used as a first stage for satellite launch vehicles for half a century. The Atlas missile’s warhead was over 100 times more powerful than the bomb dropped over Nagasaki in 1945.

Even before its military use ended in 1965, Atlas had placed four Project Mercury astronauts in orbit and was becoming the foundation for a family of successful space launch vehicles, most notably Atlas Agena and Atlas Centaur.

Today Lockheed Martin and ULA support a new Atlas rocket family based on the larger “Atlas V” which still uses the unique and highly efficient Centaur upper stage. Atlas V stage one is powered by a Russian RD-180 oxygen/kerosene engine and uses conventional aluminum isogrid tankage rather than the thin-wall, pressure-stabilized stainless steel tanks of the original Convair Atlas. Payload weights have increased along with launch vehicle weights over the years so the current Atlas V family serves many of the same type commercial, DoD, and planetary missions as earlier Atlas Centaurs.

At the risk of receiving scorn for quoting Wiki:

In May 1946, the Air Force began the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project which was followed in May 1951 by the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program. The ANP program required that Convair modify two B-36s under the MX-1589 project. One of the modified B-36s studied shielding requirements for an airborne reactor to determine whether a nuclear aircraft was feasible. The Nuclear Test Aircraft (NTA) was a B-36H-20-CF (serial number 51-5712) that had been damaged in a tornado at Carswell AFB on 1 September 1952. This aircraft, designated the XB-36H (and later NB-36H), was modified to carry a 1 MW, air-cooled nuclear reactor in the aft bomb bay, with a four-ton lead disc shield installed in the middle of the aircraft between the reactor and the cockpit. A number of large air intake and exhaust holes were installed in the sides and bottom of the aircraft’s rear fuselage to cool the reactor in flight.[44] On the ground, a crane would be utilized to remove the 35,000 pounds (16,000 kg) reactor from the aircraft. To protect the crew, the highly modified cockpit was encased in lead and rubber, with a 1-foot-thick (30 cm) leaded glass windshield.[44] The reactor was operational, but did not power the aircraft; its sole purpose was to investigate the effect of radiation on aircraft systems. [B]Between 1955 and 1957, the NB-36H completed 47 test flights and 215 hours of flight time, during 89 of which the reactor was critical.

[/B]

Here are some more authoritative sources to read:
Review of Manned Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program

Reactor Program of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Project

http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/archive/nucweapons/anp

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-powered-aircraft

http://www.megazone.org/ANP/tech.shtml

NB-36H in flight:

The original intent was four Anzac frigates (109m, 3,600 tons full) to replace the four frigates New Zealand operated in the 1980s-early 1990s*.

After the order for the first two was placed there was significant debate over whether they should be cancelled and four OPVs bought instead. In the end, those two were continued with and two OPVs (85m, 1,900 tons full) were ordered to replace the last two of the old frigates.

At the time NZ will be looking for a replacement Australia will also be starting its Anzac-replacement program. It is possible for NZ to again piggyback on its bigger neighbor’s program, but I actually think they will end up ordering four smaller, more multi-role vessels.

They will likely be a bit larger than their current OPVs, but with a “flex-deck” so as to be better fitted for non-military roles in addition to light combat.

Something like the 90m 2,400 ton or 98m 2,600 ton versions of these: http://www.damen.com/en/markets/offshore-patrol-vessel?type=3750

Something in the ~3,000 ton range might be acceptable, but they would definitely be multi-role vessels, not pure warships like the Anzacs.

* New Zealand had been operating 4 frigates as its primary naval component since the late 1960s.

Yeah… it makes you think “Why are people so desperate to believe that reality is different from what it is? Why do they have such a deep-seated compulsion to insist that everything that ever happened didn’t happen the way it was reported, and is part of a massive multi-national cover-up conspiracy?”