Airplane refuelling, servicing...

[seawasp]

How long do these take for (A) large aircraft (cargo planes, big passenger liners, etc.) and for things like fighter jets?

I'm presuming that with fighter jets, they're more like racecars than anything else, so refuelling them might be a matter of seconds -- big hose, high pressure, trained fast crew -- especially since they have the in-flight refuelling option, which I'd think **HAS** to be very, very fast or else you're in big trouble trying to keep everyone together... but it seems when I've watched them doing things with commercial jets that it takes some time to do the servicing.

Comments

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

This is based solely on a vague recollection of something I heard once, but I think that in some of the fighter jets, at least some of the components that need servicing with each flight are designed so the ground crew can just yank out the whole assembly and slap in a fresh one, and then service the old unit on the ground after the plane takes off again.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I'll ask.

I'm actually working for a company right now that makes the refueling equipment for the military.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I'm actually talking about in-flight. Is it ground refueling you're interested in?

[kjn]

The only data I have is that a SAAB JAS 39 Gripen (Swedish fighter-bomber) takes 10-15 minutes for a skilled crew (six people, of which five are conscripts) to make ready after a mission, even under austere conditions.

But the Gripen had easy servicability in the field as one of the major design goals.

[dsrtao]

Mid-air refueling can pump 2000-3000lb/s minute; an F18 can carry about 15,000lbs of fuel. Presumably that means you can refuel one in about 5-10 minutes. Can you do better on the ground/carrier? Maybe.

Figures taken from fas.org, which is pretty reliable.

[seawasp]

Both, really, though ground would be probably of major interest.

[seawasp]

Well, in some cases, but you're not yanking out the fuel tank and slapping in a new one of those! :)

[seawasp]

That's useful, thanks. :)

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Civilian side: while ground maintenance can vary immensely depending on what's needed, you can turn around an airliner surprisingly fast.

Budget carrier EasyJet (the second biggest budget carrier in Europe) have a turnaround target for their mixed fleet of Boeing 737-500s and Airbus 319s of just 22 minutes at the pier -- that's to offload 140-170 passengers and their luggage, remove the debris and load new food and beverages, and to load another 140-170 passenger and their luggage before pushing back. This includes ground refueling when necessary: it's how they make their profit on high duty cycle short haul routes.

Bigger planes and longer routes take longer, but even so the daily trans-Atlantic Boeing 757 shuttles run by Delta and Continental from my local airport (EDI) typically touch down around 0800 and are out again by 0930-1000, with 200-250 passengers each way (and as they're intercontinental flights, they need a full clean between arrival and departure).

Full ground refuelling on a 747-400 at a major airport takes significantly less than 90 minutes -- that's how long the UK/Australia flights give the passengers to stretch their legs while they take on fuel at Hong Kong or Singapore, but they're also taking on food and swapping flight crews at the same time, and they need contingency time in their schedule (it's a 22-24 hour trek from London to Melbourne).

[argonel.livejournal.com]

As a guess on that 22 minute turnaround they have the time budgeted 8 minutes unload, 4 minutes remove debris, 10 minutes passenger loading. And that swapping the food and beverage carts are a parallel activity.

I haven't paid attention, do they do manual load and unload of the baggage during that time or do they have some form of modular storage that they can take out and shove in as a unit so the packing and unpacking time doesn't happen while the plane is at the concourse.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Manual load/unload of baggage -- they don't containerize it. On the other hand, they don't sell multi-sector trips, it's strictly point-to-point (so everything comes off, then everything gets put on: nothing needs sorting).

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

There's an "x" factor there, in that it can take considerable time to dock with the drogue especially in turbulent weather. Some aerial tankers have multiple drogues to help cut down on the time it takes, but the USAF's "flying boom" version doesn't have that option. The other way to reduce "x" is through extensive training of pilots, which works better in some countries than others.

-- Steve's trying, with furrowed brow, to remember some sources but is coming up blank.

[kengr]

In air refueling takes *minutes*. There's a tradeoff between higher pressure and the weight of the reinforcing for the fuel sysytem components on the plane being refueled.

There's a guy in the KC-135 tanker whose job is "piloting" the fuel boom to the plane being refueled and trying to keep things connected (ie compensate for when the pilots of the two planes can't keep things 100% aligned.

I'd think there are videos of mid air re-fueling on youtube.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Domestic US to check out: Southwest. Very fast turnaround times. Pretty much the busliner of the skies. Land, offload people and luggage, reload. Continuing flights are fast, no more than 10-15 minutes if you're staying on board.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

From full stop to turnout onto taxiway my crew got our F-4's hot fueled & rearmed in 8-15 minutes. It took longer depending on the red-x's needing fixing. I'd guess current Gen 5 (F-22 &35) will shave off 3-4 minutes because of line replacement & much more robust diagnostics.

[orion1723.livejournal.com]

Larger Civ and other transport A/C can and do use a Multipoint Filler port and selectable tank filling so you can have more than one truck filling the A/C at a time. Aerial Refueling can be rather quick if all things align but that is also dependant on a variety of things. In the first gulf war the fighters and attack aircraft we saw were trading ordinance weight for fuel weight at take off so they would hit us essentially empty, then get a full load of fuel in the air. Also depends on what type of refuelling you talking about- Boom Style(USAF) and Probe and Drogue(Pretty much everyone else). In but for a generic timeframe 10-15 minutes would be good for a complete cycle without getting into a ton of details.