C-130/F-35 Mid-air

I can't figure out how the fighter could get so far forward to engage the number three and four props on the tanker.

 

I'm guessing that the hose whiplashed forward and took them out.

Left wing damage including #1 prop prolly happened on landing.

 

Thanks, I didn't think of that. Whatever it was, it got to the fighter too, I guess.

 

The thought of refueling a high performance fighter with a C-130 does not compute with me. Wonder it they use thrust vectoring to keep from falling out of the sky.

 

I was wondering about this, too, because of the distance from the trailing hose to the props. There must have been some thrust applied to get the hose to flail around and to perhaps get the airplane grossly out of position. I'm not well versed in this end of things with fancy fighters and probe and drogue refueling. I imagine that there are tanker wing tip vortices and down flow to deal with.

 

Bob- I had a chance to refuel on the last KC-97 ever to visit a refueling track near Cannon AFB, but we had a compressor stall on climb-out and rules were we had to abort. The technique for refueling that slowly, even with their aux jets burning, was to put one engine in AB and then refuel using the other one for positioning. Still a boom, though, and not probe and drogue.

Hard to do on an F-35B, which only has one engine.

 

Air refueling is one of the most fun things we do. It can also become one of the most stressful. At night, over the ocean, while threading thunderstorms between Hawai’i and Wake, with f’all of nothing in-between is a time I will never forget. I can’t imagine doing it at 200 something knots and pushing on the hose like my Navy friends do...

 

I remember seeing old pics of F-86 Sabres refueling from a B-50 tanker (KC-50???) with the gear down to stay slow enough.

 

This really doesn't make sense. $100m airplane crashes into a C-130 refueling tanker? Given the tanker crew the benefit of the doubt and kudos for landing the plane....what the hell was going on with the F-35? I'm glad everyone is safe.

 

Me, too. This still doesn't make sense. I worked with an ex-KC-97 pilot and he said that they had to run the airplane at max while in a shallow glide / dive when refueling a jet fighter.

 

KC-130 The F35 struck the right wing of the KC-130. Notice shroud and prop missing. Landed in a crop field. Not sure how they are going to recover this.

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Video of F35 hitting the ground.

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Will- Affirmative on AAR being fun with a boom and probably with a probe and drogue at 350 knots. I just wonder if the F-35B uses thrust vectoring to refuel with a KC-130. Would sure give you something else to foul up. Like being in space where more throttle makes you go up as well as forward.

 

That is still a long way to go forward but I'm not a jet jock and I don't know all that there is to know in this matter.

 

Paging @MarkPDX given how much time he spends up front of a C-130.

 

I thought the training went along the path that after refueling you fell off left or right not up or down. Hard to imagine the KC-130 wasn't at a constant speed. I can't tell from the damage....he either came up under the right wing or down on top of it (I think this is more likely given the wing tanks on the plane). Either way kudos for the KC-130 crew for landing that fuel tank safely.

 

There are some pics from the air of the track the C-130 left in the dirt on landing and you can see the spray of dirt from where the props on the left side touched down.

 

The C-130J isn’t exactly cheap... ours were $70m each.

 

Agree.....but at least they can salvage parts or possibly repair the KC-130 that landed in the field. The F-35 was a total loss.

 

It does seem a little odd but it also kinda fits with what the Marines do. They are gonna need tanker support that can operate from a forward location where USAF style tankers won’t be able to operate out of.

How much speed you think an F-35 or similar needs to be fairly controllable? We don’t fly low and fast that often, partly due to mission set and partly due to just basic rules, but the J has a decent amount of power. Fully loaded with 60k on gas it takes off and climbs like an empty H. One of the guys I work with flew HC and MC-130s and I’m curious to ask him what kinda speeds they could hit.

 

They have removed wings and tails from C-130s in the past for ground transport, taken them to a suitable site, and then rebuilt them, so that might happen to this one as well.

 

It has been done... but sometimes they just get cut up and sent to the scrapper. A few Herks got hit by a tornado at Little Rock a few years back and they were stripped down and cut up.

 

Aircrew did a good job getting her down safely. They even managed to land with the plowed furrows.

 

What is leaking out of the left wing? Is that fuel?