KC-46 suffers ED
Apparently there is a limpness issue in the Air Force. No, not among male airmen per se….but with their newest fleet refueling plane, the KC-46.
There have been multiple incidents, the most recent August 21, involving the KC-46 boom.
The KC-46 involved in the mishap was from the 931st Air Refueling Wing at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, but was operating out of Travis Air Force Base, California, and was using the callsign WIDE12. It was refueling two F-15Es from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, and reportedly assigned to the 391st Fighter Squadron.
However, thanks to the audio, we do know that NOBLE41’s crew communicated via radio to air traffic control informing them that NOBLE42 had suffered some kind of issue with its hydraulic system. The radio communications also include WIDE12 confirming hydraulic problems of its own and declaring an inflight emergency. At one point in the communications, a reference is made to the boom on the KC-46 having “fallen off.”
The F-15s were enforcing no-fly zones for a Presidential visit. (This illustrates the difference between Presidential security and wanna-be Presidential security – the candidates may get Secret Service, but the Prexy gets the Air Force.)
The 931st Air Refueling Wing subsequently confirmed that the aircraft had lost a “portion” of its boom close to the base and then landed with what was left of the boom still lowered. The wing added that no one was injured during the incident.
That would appear to be supported by unofficial photos that appeared on Facebook purportedly show damage to the KC-46. In these photos, the boom itself is seen sheared off, the remaining part dragging on the runway, while there are also signs of impacts on the tip of the tail cone.
For you Navy folks out there, you might be interested to know the F-15 was supposed to use an arresting hook on landing – and two attempts failed before successfully landing a third time. Guess that shows the difference between Navy pilots and AF pilots? Or at least their training. (In fairness, on the first attempt the cable broke. But why miss a good opportunity to stir up stuff?)
In June this year, another KC-46 from the 931st Air Refueling Wing was damaged while refueling a U.S. Air Force F-16 in Dutch airspace.
Back in October 2022, there was another refueling accident involving a KC-46 and an F-15. Unconfirmed photos posted on social media showed the tanker’s damaged boom and tail cone. In another incident the same year, a KC-46 conducting a flight with a congressional delegation on board made an emergency landing with the boom dangling below the aircraft, as you can read about here.
Before that, in 2020, The War Zone examined a video showing an apparent close-call incident involving a KC-46 and a test F-15E. In this footage, the boom appears to slip off the Strike Eagle’s refueling receptacle, with its control surfaces nearly banging into the fighter’s canopy.
Notable change – boom operators used to have visual control from the rear of the tanker as shown above. Now they work from the main cabin using multiple camera angles and special glasses. Regardless, seems the floppy boom ain’t helping any. Or is it floppy due to all the cameras? Someone more knowledgeable can maybe help?
Boeing is currently under contract to address issues with stiffness in the boom on the KC-46, a fix that involves hardware and software changes. As for the Remote Vision System, or RVS, the contractor is integrating an entirely new version of this into the tanker. The Warzone
Given that midair refueling is one of the air fleet’s most crucial functions, one would think Boeing needs to fix this ASAP. Add a little incentive, the old being-phased-out KC-135 tanker is based on a 707… I’ll bet there’s a sizable portion of our readership who are too young to seen a 707, much less flown on one commercially.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Air Force
“Notable change – boom operators used to have visual control from the rear of the tanker as shown above. Now they work from the main cabin using multiple camera angles and special glasses. Regardless, seems the floppy boom ain’t helping any. Or is it floppy due to all the cameras? Someone more knowledgeable can maybe help?”
Apparently, “New and Improved” failed miserably AGAIN.
A 707 was blocking the runway in the movie “Airport” and George Kennedy got it out. So I guess I’ve seen one, sort of.
If Boeing was building B-17s nowadays, they wouldn’t be better than B-24s.
If World War II was today, the Memphis Belle would be delivered with missing bolts, parts installed backward and a bag of pot in a dead space.
Joe Patroni was da man!
Between this most recent incident and the Dutch debacle……is the problem with the plane, or the 931st Air Wing?
And it comes back to Boeing, doesn’t it? Poor implementation of a poor design.
I could make jokes about limp things and Chair Farce, but……nah.
On the positive side, I will admit that the Chair Farce had the best mess halls, EVAH
My father (USAF Food Service) thought it was funny that so many thought USAF DFACS were better than the others. I’ve been in Navy, AF, and Army DFACS, and saw little difference.
Looking forward to the day when the US Military converts to all electric aircraft. Inflight refueling should be interest when the when the KC-46 lowers the 500 foot Home Depot extension cord and they are tethered for the 30 some hours to to replenish the fighter aircraft.
KC-46 Pilot: I swear, this never happened before.
F-16 Pilot: That’s okay. You’re probably under a lot of stress, we could just cuddle.
If your boom remains stiff for more than four (4) hours, contact your air craft mechanic/crew chief.
In related news about Boeing, their space bird will be stuck at the ISS til next year sometime. And we thought Lockheed putting wings and motors on a C-130 caddy whompus for the Navy was a bad idea. At least the P-3 worked like it was supposed to.
Damn, I gots to go, see y’all this pm.
If the boom is stiff for more that four hours, look at the “chain of command” pics of the Veep.
If the boom is stiff for more than 4 hours, I’m bragging about it.
Big old jet airliner, Steve Miller Band.
Believe I have flown on a few of those.
Boeing. Again.
Bonging.
Woeing.
I’ve enjoyed the jokes you all had for this one but some comments have actually been dead on – Boeing (or Boing or Bong or what have you) has screwed the pooch on this whole new refuel system.
Most have probably heard that when the put together this new refueler to keep the crew together they created the remote viewing system. Previously all our ChairForce jet flying gas stations had the boom operator (boomer) in the back to “fly” the boom extension out to the receiving aircraft. I was lucky to enjoy watching the refuel of my F-16 Viper (go “Team Lawndart!!!”) on a few trips out to exercises across the US. Good boomers make it look easy – it’s not, at all… Visibility, depth perception, clear comms (between boomer, flight deck & the receiving fuel target) and damn good flight skills made a dangerous activity look smooth each time.
So Boeing creates a remote viewing system that puts the boomer up front on the flight deck with the pilot, co-pilot. But it doesn’t work – cameras get washed out in certain lighting conditions, the viewing googles to enable improved depth perception actually caused viewing problems for some folks and so on. So Boeing is back to the drawing board on that viewing system with version 2.0 but I’m not sure when that will be deployed due to the usual Boeing delays.
Now there is reportedly a “stiffness” issue but I’m not sure if its in the “give” that’s needed for the hydraulics to cushion the up/down motion during actual contact between the two craft or the lateral motion during both flying it to connect and while fueling. Having been a hydraulics mech first in tech school we learned all the major hydraulics systems of the time so I remember some of the KC-135 and KC-10 boom assembly general tech. Enough that I was glad I got sent to fighters, tankers got too many things that leak too much stuff, ha!
What exactly happened here, not sure but I’m sure the accident report will be an unpleasant read…
Ten bucks says they blame the boomer.
I just saw an image of the GOV saying something about protecting their phony baloney jobs in the Boeing board room.
Pity the low ranking boomer. It’s all his/her fault.
Once worked a KC-130 that was refueling a pair of CH-53’s
over the Gulf of Mexico. I was just the ground radio op.The
refueling went ok but one of the hoses wouldn’t retract and they
flew around for a couple hours before finally chopping it and
then flew around until confirming it sank.
Dangerous job no matter how you slice it.
One of our AFRES HC-130’s had to guillotine the IFR hose while on an exercise refueling HH-60’s over central Oregon. It crashed into the roof of an uninhabited house on the Warm Springs indian reservation. Some time later the sheet metal/structural shop painted the outline of a little house on the plane right next to the crew entry door indicating it’s “kill.”
So is this why yesterday’s Sunday Boomer meme free for all was a DIY edition?
Or maybe this was the reason. He has mentioned he likes riding bikes.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijwd9dck7Ql3tF6dWBmayqLTMKf2l0KgR-kFAq8EwBaG7G6kJzzlA9FyIwnfilRdtdNc8o59msANxBqGcfyCthzS6NNCV96BS9cUUYc5Tyr99zextywh5O_UqNts8JhN-UK-TWNmm3VIro8-uSCILxtfg4sLT_IRrqkGyF_rZyAYacZBB2ZbUnCAPOkkQ=w668-h472
Fuck, Odie, you’re killing me. I can’t stop laughing.
In all seriousness, I hope all is well with him. And I hope he has the sense of humor I think he does.
The motto of the Air Farce seems to be, “If It Ain’t Broke, Better Git It Fixed So It Is!”
Murphy’s Law
“If something can go wrong, it will.”
Aircraft Mechanic’s Rule
“It already has gone wrong, you just don’t know about it yet.”
Everything Boeing Touches now days turns to shit
What give with that