Mid-air refueling is already an incredibly powerful force multiplier. If you could rearm the craft as well while in flight you’d never have to use another country’s airfields again.
The US Air Force’s research lab in New York is developing a system will allow fighter planes to be rearmed, as well as refuelled, in mid-flight.
A supply plane, such as a C-141 or C-17 would incorporate a telescopic boom that extends from its rear. This boom would boast its own miniature wings, to give it stability and lift while deployed. And mounted on top would be a looped conveyor belt to move bombs and missiles from the supply plane to the boom’s end.
A fighter plane could then fly over the boom until optical sensors confirm that the weapons below are aligned and can be snatched up.
The Air Force’s patent application reveals political motivations for the plan. It says that some nations are reluctant to provide access to bases for refuelling and rearming.
But what about the pilot? Will they lower him (or her) a sandwich on a rope?
Next up: midair repairs.
What they need is a system where the bomb itself is the plane/pilot.
Make it around a 500 pound bomb…use the money that it costs to make that bomb and design a system that costs VERY little more….that has it’s own fuel, range and flies itself to the destination or by remote.
No pilots, no multi-million dollar aircraft, no refueling or rearming. No repair costs.
Sure, we have cruise missiles, but they’re WAY too expensive. It’s cheaper to just fly a plane over and drop the bombs. Cost of the mission is the bomb itself and the fuel to and back from the target. But the potential for the loss of the aircraft and the pilot(s) is too great. Low-cost remote-guided bombs are what we need. Make it reliable, low-cost and very easy to set up and use. Then they can be launched from anywhere on the planet. No need to move a big lumbering aircraft carrier to an area. Just use these remote-guided bombs and achieve the exact same thing.
I feel sorry for the pilots. Those poor bastards are never going to set foot on the ground again.
My point exactly.
Salamn,
A cruise missile is incredibly inexpensive for what it does and how it does it. It can be launched from an aircraft, ship, or sub, and can strike targets at extreme ranges independent of external control. It is extremely rugged and can function in harsh environments. All that capability costs a lot of money.
We already have ultralight recon aircraft at the troop level. The troops would be better served by adding guided capability to their current light rocket launcher. The Objective Individual Combat Weapon (OICW) will have grenades that explode at a distance pre-set by the soldier.
Doesn’t sound very safe to me.
As long as they don’t do this rearming over my house, I’m fine with it.
Seems like a practical idea for the F-22, which houses all of its weapons internally, but to do this on an F-15 sounds like threading a needle at best.
Good point, James. This concept is well-suited for implementation in the next generation of fighter aircraft. Internal stores only need loading doors on the top (matching the “unloading” doors on the bottom).
First thing I thought of was the old US Navy airships which used to carry their own airplanes – internally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F9C_Sparrowhawk
The Air Force’s patent application…
They have a patent application for this?
Who do they expect to sue for violating their patent?? China? North Korea?
A fighter plane could then fly over the boom …
Right into the turbulence caused by the boom – especially with that conveyor belt – which I’m sure is very aerodynamic [not].
As the photo shows, current refueling – other than probe & drogue – keeps the refueling plane below the turbulence from the tanker and its boom…
http://www.topfighters.com/science-topic.php?scid=10
…the US Air Force and US Navy do use different and incompatible systems for in-flight refueling. The US Navy, along with virtually every air force and naval air service around the world, uses the probe-and-drogue method…
The reason the Air Force continues to use the boom-receiver system is that the short, rigid boom is capable of transferring fuel at a much higher rate than the long, flexible hose of the probe-and-drogue method
I would like to see a system that lets everyone realize that war is wrong, and killing strangers because your leaders told you to, is wronger.
I keep forgetting how many air-geeks we have around here. I guess I should track down the piece on the joint India-Russia cruise missile — the first to go supersonic — about to go into service.
Figured it would just be me and the other three weird science geeks.
Sounds pretty hokey to me. Are they going to place a 2000 pound bomb on the end of a boom, extend it 75 feet above the re-arming plane into a 400+ mph airstream, and then stick it into the weapons bay of a overflying fighter?!?!? Ever try to balance a bowling ball on top of a broom hand? Same concept only the bowling ball is packed with high explosives. Now try it in a hurricane. This is a recipe for disaster.
What if the bomb gets fumbled during the handoff between planes? Does it drop back onto the re-arming plane and punch a huge hole in its wing or fuselage? Total lunacy.
Just because you have a patent doesn’t mean the patent is worth anything. This sounds like a half-baked idea. Hopefully, sanity will prevail.
Shame that the USA warplane that was flying to the Middle East with the reloads of the smart bombs has to refuel in the UK……..lots of heat for a pitstop that in-air refuels would not help…..
Mike T, those questions and many others would all be answered through brainstorming and mock-ups. The idea is sound, it just needs to be made to work.
How about landing the fighter on top of a modified C-17 and refitting that way.
or
How about the munitions are fitted into a cartridge and the whole cartridge is swapped out.
Mark, try the bowling ball thing again, except this time you have the funding of the defense department.
All they need to do is drop Dell Laptops on people as they tend to be mini-bombs in and of themselves.
When will they invent a mid air, landing platform??
ECA, maybe they can just add some big wings to the aircraft carrier. ; )
At first I thought the article said the planes could get REAMED mid air. Figured it must be some kind of mid-air engine cleaning proces or something.
17,
Close.
A few alternatives, is a LARGE BAY to drop into…Look at the craft, in Air refueling is abit hard, and done at slow speeds. If they can hit that Nozzle, they could land into a bay.
Other option is to setup a helium ballon type BASE. I know it would be a large target, but it wouldnt use MASSIVE fuel, and takeoffs would be simple, and it PROBABLY would have a Large heat signature.
A few more years for Moore’s law to work things out and the pilot is History.
Good point. A large carrier aircraft just off the horizon launching volleys of extremely smart munitions (ESM) will be the way of the future.
This makes sense… typical military idea
Just because you don’t have to land fighter aircraft to re-arm, how the heck do you land the tankers and the ferry aircraft. If you can build a plane that can carry tons of bombs without needing a local airfield, why not just put bomb bay doors on it and call it a B-52…