KB-1C Lancer?

[SebastianP]

The title says it all, really: What would the Lancer look like as a tanker? Would it even work? I'm thinking drogue refuelling would be the order of the day, since a boom would be draggy and there's no place to put an operator. Maybe as the Lancer K.3?

[upnorth]

I think it would kind of be wasting the B-1 unless you locked its wings permanently at full spread and downgraded its engines so it couldn't go supersonic.

I seriously doubt the feasiblity of refueling at the kind of high performance speeds the B-1 was meant for with either a boom or a drogue. Unless you put in non afterburning engines the B-1 would be a trully fuel ineficient bird in the tanke role.

As for the boom/drogue operator, about the only place you could stick them is at a cockpit tactical station refitted for the gas passing duties.

[Jschmus]

Rockwell actually did a study of a fixed-wing version of the B-1A.  One of the proposed roles was that of tanker:

[B777LR]

No need to do it fixed wing. It can use super sonic flight to get to and from the patrol area, or away from enemy fighters, and then slow down for slow refuelling!

[Mossie]

The main thing that would worry me would be the jet wash.  Anything getting re-fuelled would be buffetted around like crazy, drogues would almost be impossible, making it very difficult to re-fuel.

Don't let me put you off though Sebastian!  In true whiffery style, you could get around it by say, inventing auto-pilot software that could automatically dock the two aircraft (I'd be surprised if some boffin wasn't working on this) & could cope with supersonic speeds for improved journey times.

Always a way around these things!

Simon.

[Shasper]

No need to do it fixed wing. It can use super sonic flight to get to and from the patrol area, or away from enemy fighters, and then slow down for slow refuelling!

Fuel burn would be a problem.


Upnorth- The Bone cant sustane supersonic flight, hte most it will go is .98Mach. This is due to the bafflings installed in the air intakes to reduce the RCS (the A model had variable-geo. intakes while the Bs are fixed.)


Shas B)

[Jennings]

Why on earth would you want or need a B-1 tanker when you've got scads of much more capable KC-135s and a handfull of KC-10s?  Besides, the KC-135 inventing tanking

J

[elmayerle]

The only reason I can see for a KB-1 would be to refuel an asset you didn't want to have slow down to refuel from a KC-135 or KC-10.  Mind you, I've had an idea for a diorama of a KB-2 refueling a supersonic stealthy strike aircraft - and I can come up with a description of why that's still an LO event.  I've even got the wherewithall to do the strike aircraft, I just need to acquire a 1/144 B-2.  For high-speed probe and drogue refueling, you'd probably need the drogue on the end of a boom as was played with on the concept for the buddy refueling pack on the TSR-2.

[The Rat]

I've even got the wherewithall to do the strike aircraft, I just need to acquire a 1/144 B-2.

All right, that tears it. I don't like to order people around, but I want that done ASAP!!

Start tomorrow.  

[John Howling Mouse]

In "War For The Hell Of It" I recall the author/pilot explaining how in-flight refueling was not nearly as much of a straight-forward gain as most of us groundwalkers think.  He explained that, since the fighters have to expend so much additional fuel in order to keep their aircraft from stalling but slow enough to formate on many tankers, they definitely pay for their fill-up.  IIRC, it was a ratio of something like 1 out of every 3 pounds of fuel taken on are actually burned during refueling just to link up and maintain position with the slower tankers.

Wonder if that could be alleviated with a faster fuel-carrier?

And besides, it is an original idea that would just look COOL!