Aerial Refueling - Key to American Airpower (Part One)

 

USAF KC-46A Pegasus refueling an A-10 Warthog *

Last week, the United States asked the Israeli government to increase the number of U.S. Air Force aerial refueling aircraft temporarily based at Ben Gurion International Airport. At the time of the request, there were about 60 tankers at Ben Gurion. The presence of this number of USAF aircraft has reduced the capacity of the airport by about 70 percent. 

Increasing the number of tankers to almost 100 aircraft would severly limit civilian air traffic into and out of Israel's primary and largest airport. Israel has agreed to the increased number of tankers, but they will be based at Israeli air bases instead.

Why does the USAF need so many tankers? Aerial refueling is a major mission for the USAF, and an important mission for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The U.S. Army has only a few refuelable helicopters, mostly belonging the the 160th Special Operations Air Regiment - these are almost always refueled by the USAF Special Operations Command's MC-130 aircraft.

Why is aerial refueling important? I am going to use some graphics from one of my cruise ship presentations about the 2025 and 2026 Israeli and U.S. air operations against Iran. 

Given the distances between air bases and targets, aerial refueling plays a major role. For example, the distance between air bases in Israel and targets in Iran can be 1000 miles or more. 

Most Israeli aircraft cannot fly that distance unrefueled. Unfortunately, Israel has only six aging B707 refueling aircraft. They have ordered the KC-46A Pegasus, but they have not been delivered. 

Israeli Air Force refueling F-15I Ra'am aircraft

Because of that shortage, the USAF provided KC-46A tanker support to Israeli aircraft on their way to and from Iran during Operation Rising Lion.

USAF KC-46A refueling Israeli Air Force F-35

Given the lack of an adequate number of tanker aircraft, there are other solutions to extend the range of fighter aircraft. The Israelis make extensive use of conformal fuel tanks (CFT) and external drop tanks. CFT are attached to the aircraft and are aerodynamically designed to cause less drag than coventional drop tanks, which are carried under the fuselage and/or wings. 

Here are an F-15I and F-16I with CFT. Please note that these aircraft are also carrying drop tanks.

This picture below highlights the problem of not having sufficient aerial refueling capability.

F-16I Sufa ready to go to Iranian targets

Again, this F-16I is outfitted with CFT as well as three external drop tanks. It is only carrying two air-to-ground munitions, in this case SPICE 1000-pound precision-guided munitions, plus wingtip-mounted Python 5 air-to-air missiles in the off-chance that the virtually destroyed Iranian air force attempted to engage.

That's a long way to go to drop just two weapons. Most of the aircraft capability is tied up in carrying enough fuel to make the round-trip sortie.

This illustrates the fuel-munitions tradeoff. For those not familiar with air operations, a quick review. The limiting factor for air operations planners is the gross takeoff weight of an aircraft. Start with an aircraft with no fuel or munitions. For example, an empty F-15I weighs about 32,700 pounds, with a gross takeoff weight about 81,000 pounds. That leaves almost 50,000 pounds of payload. 

This is where the USAF excels in the use of aerial refueling. When possible, aircraft are loaded with a maximum munitions load and a minumum fuel load. Immediately after takeoff, the aircraft meets a tanker prepositioned near the base, where it takes on as full a fuel load as possible. Now, it is a fully armed and fully fueled aircraft.  

That's why we put so many of our resources into aerial refueling. It is a force multiplier. Fun fact: 75 percent of world's aerial refueling aircraft belong to the U.S. Air Force.

We do this better than anyone in the world.

Note: Part Two will discuss types of refueling and issues for some of our allies.
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* Yes, I know the official name of the A-10 is the Thunderbolt II. In over 27 years of service in the USAF, I can probably count on one hand the number of times anyone in the field called it anything but the Warthog, usually with admiration and respect. It is a fearsome weapon system.