In-flight rearming

[Gervasius]

How do you re-arm the rearming plane??

Just imagine - A huge blimp rearming a transport A380, which rearms C-17, which rearms C-130, which rearms F-16, which rearms Predator UAV.

Diorama anyone?

Marko

[lancer]

I'd hate to be the poor bloody erk that has to stick new missiles under pylons at 30'000ft or open the gun bay panels and reload a 20mm gun. It'd be more than a bit windy and what happens if you drop sumat?? It's a long way down.

[Ollie]

Yeah, what would the H&S office think of that, eh?

Nonsense!

[devil505]

How do you re-arm the rearming plane??

Just imagine - A huge blimp rearming a transport A380, which rearms C-17, which rearms C-130, which rearms F-16, which rearms Predator UAV.

Diorama anyone?

Marko

I'm gonna give myself a headache thinking about this one  

[Runway ? ...]

I can see a rather large dirigable with a runway and trap and cat system,
I can also see an automated system being able to bomb up a plane on the ground,
but the forces and control involved in waving a JDAM in the general direction of an F16 that is bouncing around in the wake of a Herc, attaching and arming it doesn't bear thinking about. It'd probably be simpler to add targeting systems to the Herc.

I wonder how big a dirigible you'd need to support, say, Predator ops and whether protecting that asset would take more effort than it would cost to return to base after a sortie.

Skybase doesn't seem to be such silly a suggestion. Anybody measured up the ones in ToysRus.    

[Jeffry Fontaine]

The idea of an aerial base of operations or a forward aerial operating base would certainly add a new dimension in the conduct of warfare.  If you consider the approach that was taken by the US Navy in developing large aircraft carrying Scouting Airships of the early 30s.  These airships were designed to carry a small contigent of figher/scout aircraft to perform the reconnaissance mission ahead of the main battle fleet and they were quite successful when employed in that mission during the early fleet maneuvers.  The only problem was that the Airships were vulnerable to severe weather as demonstrated by the Loss of the USS Macon and the USS Shenandoah.  

Perhaps something similar to this design with the trapeze system to haul the aircraft inside the airship to a hangar bay.  The aircraft could remain secured to the trapeze and the rearming/refueling evolution could be performed.  After completion of the refueling/rearming evolution the aircaraft could then be released back into the airstream and the engine restarted and released to complete another mission.  For obvious safety reasons, it is not common practice to rearm and refuel an aircraft at the same time, but there is also nothing that say it can not be done.  

The airship would have to be quite large in order to haul the fuel and weapons needed for a flight of aircraft and be able to accomodate four or more aircraft per evolution.  I would imagine a useful load of around 1000 tons would be practical to provide the necessary lift capacity to support several evolutions in support of operations which would then require the airship to depart station and return to a main operation base to replenish fuel and weapons stocks and return to station to releive the airship on station.  A group of three to four airships would then be able to support a squadron or more of aircraft increasing the sortie rates for each aircraft without having the aircraft return to base.  

I do not think that this is impossibe to do and the technology is available to create something like this now if there was an actual pressing need for such a thing.  I personally believe that the airship was a valuable resource that was abandoned in haste by the Navy when it should have been retained in service.  

[B777LR]

Or a burning smoking wreck of F-16 and C-130 on the ground?

How can there be a wreck of the C-130? With all those bombs, there cant be anthing left!

[NARSES2]

How do you re-arm the rearming plane??

    You are getting really cynical in your young age, took me a lot longer   Love it

[Runway ? ...]

Fantasy in flight rearming thought ( I know somebody will have gone here before but anyway ).

Take one large transport and replace fuselage with with 80 foot (ish) internal diameter tube (allows Predator and is a barn to an F16).
Add a roller door at the front, Wires to catch a reversed arrestor towards the nose of your parasite and we've got a flying hanger.
You could capture by the aircraft by overtaking it. I'm assuming the larger aircraft approaching the smaller one would be much less turbulent.
If not, a conventional carrier approach could be tried.

Shut the door and the erks can get to work.  

The Launch could be either by cat forwards, powered out by itself (because we already have airspeed) or even dropped through the floor.

Oh, you might want to armour the inside of the tube and give everybody onboard their own bangseat because I've no idea what happens if you introduce a 'plane backwards into a tube  

[PanzerWulff]

Ok I can see this
C-130-"May I take your order?"
F/A-18-"yea I'll take a Double Quarter pounder with cheese extra value meal with a large Coke and a side order of Mk82's and Maverics.Oh yea Super Size it and add four sidewinders please."
C-130-"Will that be all Sir?"
F/A-18-"Yea thats all."
C-130-"Ok pull up to the second window to pick up your order.And have a nice day."

Ok who can see it  HUH HUH???
Panzer    

[Archibald]

The idea of an aerial base of operations or a forward aerial operating base would certainly add a new dimension in the conduct of warfare.  If you consider the approach that was taken by the US Navy in developing large aircraft carrying Scouting Airships of the early 30s.  These airships were designed to carry a small contigent of figher/scout aircraft to perform the reconnaissance mission ahead of the main battle fleet and they were quite successful when employed in that mission during the early fleet maneuvers.  The only problem was that the Airships were vulnerable to severe weather as demonstrated by the Loss of the USS Macon and the USS Shenandoah.  

Perhaps something similar to this design with the trapeze system to haul the aircraft inside the airship to a hangar bay.  The aircraft could remain secured to the trapeze and the rearming/refueling evolution could be performed.  After completion of the refueling/rearming evolution the aircaraft could then be released back into the airstream and the engine restarted and released to complete another mission.  For obvious safety reasons, it is not common practice to rearm and refuel an aircraft at the same time, but there is also nothing that say it can not be done.  

The airship would have to be quite large in order to haul the fuel and weapons needed for a flight of aircraft and be able to accomodate four or more aircraft per evolution.  I would imagine a useful load of around 1000 tons would be practical to provide the necessary lift capacity to support several evolutions in support of operations which would then require the airship to depart station and return to a main operation base to replenish fuel and weapons stocks and return to station to releive the airship on station.  A group of three to four airships would then be able to support a squadron or more of aircraft increasing the sortie rates for each aircraft without having the aircraft return to base.  

I do not think that this is impossibe to do and the technology is available to create something like this now if there was an actual pressing need for such a thing.  I personally believe that the airship was a valuable resource that was abandoned in haste by the Navy when it should have been retained in service.

Wow! Just see "captain sky and the world of tomorrow" Remind me the flying carrier with Angelina Jolie and Gwuneth Paltrow on the flight deck...    

[Archibald]

More seriously, practical number of engine on a flying craft is something like 8 or 10. Now, we have this GE-90 engine which demonstrated more than 50 tons of thrust on the bench...which gave a power of 500 tons at take off.
Now, an aircraft can take off with a thrust to weight ratio of 4 or even 5 (the
An-225 is around 4.2).
With 500 tons of thrust, maybe you could haul around 2000 tons in the air. don't know exactly what would be the cargo load on such a plane (between 700 and 1300 tons?)

[Ollie]

What you need is a Camel Hump as in "Stealth", only modified with a small runway on top so V/STOL planes can land and rearm.  There, flying forward airfield for Harriers...

 

[Runway ? ...]

PanzerWulff: That image so sums up the situation. I laughed my donkey off at it.

My version.  Erk 1 to Erk 2: You jump on the nose and I'll pass you this : (waves sidewinder). Definitely not as funny as yours.

Ollie: Harriers! I hadn't thought of them.
We (UK) have some Sea Harriers going cheap to anybody that is interested.
They might be limited in extreme hot/high situations but having a landing field with sufficient mass to not "fop off" if you push against it might be all it takes.

[lancer]

Ok I can see this
C-130-"May I take your order?"
F/A-18-"yea I'll take a Double Quarter pounder with cheese extra value meal with a large Coke and a side order of Mk82's and Maverics.Oh yea Super Size it and add four sidewinders please."
C-130-"Will that be all Sir?"
F/A-18-"Yea thats all."
C-130-"Ok pull up to the second window to pick up your order.And have a nice day."

Ok who can see it  HUH HUH???
Panzer