Frontier India Strategic and Defence - News, Analysis, Opinion

Written on July 23, 2008 – 11:39 pm | by Frontier India Strategic and Defence |

EADS Military Transport Aircraft Division advanced aerial refueling boom has confirmed its ability to support large U.S., NATO and allied air forces by performing multiple aerial refueling contacts with an operational French AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft. Performed on Friday , July 18, over Spanish air space and under control of Spanish air traffic controllers, the demonstration mission used a fully-operational ARBS, which is installed on an A310 test-bed aircraft.

The boom operator onboard used a three-dimensional vision surveillance system for a high-fidelity view of the boom’s position during the air-to-air refueling process. During these evaluations, the French Air Force AWACS closed from the pre-contact to contact position for multiple hook-ups. This follows previous in-flight evaluations that confirmed the ARBS’ excellent handling qualities with large receiver platforms, along with smaller and faster combat aircraft like F-16.

The boom used is the same boom developed by EADS MTAD that will equip the Australian, Saudi, and Emirates tankers and will be supplied by this Division of EADS to Northrop Grumman for the KC-45 programme.

Besides an advanced boom main structure, the ARBS has fly-by-wire controls, including an automatic load alleviation system, that gives a larger refuelling envelope and improved controllability. The maximum nominal fuel flow is 1200 US gal./min. A boom operator, RARO (Remote Aerial Refuelling Operator), sat at a station located in the cockpit, controls an artificial 3D-vision surveillance system during the entire air-to-air refuelling process.