Like, say, in the Persian Gulf.
In that case, would the fighters have to cross the Atlantic? Or would they be flown in on larger aircraft? (If that’s even possible.)
The first thing that comes to mind is that they’re shipped on carriers, but since carriers belong to the Navy, I’m not sure if that’d be so feasible. Being that AF pilots aren’t trained for carrier landings/take offs and all.
I believe they just fly, like any plain old airliner.
Larger aircraft can carry plenty of fuel internally. Smaller fighters can use additional externally-mounted fuel tanks (drop tanks) or make use of inflight refuelling from tanker aircraft. Even without that much fuel, you could do it in short hops – Greenland, Iceland, Scotland, Continental Europe and so on.
all air force jets are rigged for in-flight refueling. tanker planes fly to designated fly zones and wait there for the flight of fighters. They are refueled and proceed to the next refueling zone until they reach land or their destination. Because a refueling fighter is at great risk, the refueling zones used are one of the most closely guarded secrets of the air force.
Air Force pilots aren’t trained in carrier landings. Navy pilots are trained in little else. Oy. All day, all night they take off and land, the carrier surging forward and backward with each recovery and launch, the echoes of the catapults and arresting gear echoing throughout the ship. Just try to sleep.
And AF planes aren’t physically capable of a carrier landing.
They could use a crane to put 'em on a cargo ship, though. But I think they just fly.
Yup, they just fly 'em there.
ALmost always in a straight shot, no hops, with refueling in air.
(I have friends that do it all the time.)
don’t forget the AF has bases EVERYWHERE, so once they get overseas, they don’t have to park too far away
Actually, they work out arrangements with other countries to use their runways and stuff. Trading rights and stuff. They do have a lot of bases, but they’re not everywhere.
For a dramatic visual of mid-air refueling be sure to go out and rent The Starfighters, as riffed on by Mystery Science Theater 3000. A two hour movie with one and a half hours of in-flight refueling. And it stars Bob Dornan, too.
for the Iraq missions I believe they use bases in Turkey and some other Arab countries. Obviously, if you have bases you can use, then that is what you do. In-flight refueling is used to get the airplanes there although I guess the pilots can only fly for so long before they are exhausted.
The AWACS can stay aloft indefinitely being refueled periodically. They have bunks and crews (both flight and AWAC system) rotate.
When Reagan ordered the strikes against Lybia the airplanes had to take off from England. Neither France nor Spain would authorize them to fly over so they had to fly all the way around the Iberian peninsula and through Gibraltar. I believe they all returned to England (with more refueling on the way back) except one which suffered some damage and landed somewhere in Spain. I forget how many refuels the whole exercise required but it was quite a feat if you take into account the hours the entire mission required.
When a country buys a number of planes, they fly a few over and send the rest as kits to assemble, usually. The cost is less that way, probably delivery cost as well.
Or, if you want to see an in-flight refuelling while watching a half-decent movie, it’s also shown during the opening sequences of Dr. Strangelove, [sup][sub]or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb[/sub][/sup]
The problem is not the refueling. The problem is how do you get a fighter pilot to fly nonstop for the duration of the mission, without a coffee break of taking a leak.
Actually, both these are taken care of in flight as well.
Well, maybe not coffee, but I’ve known pilots to store a soda/snack in the leg pocket of their “bags” (flight suits).
And the taking a leak part is done via a “relief bag”.
(This is for fighter pilots. The guys in cargo planes just walk back to the toilet.)
Then there’s the story of the navy pilot ('scuse me, “aviator”) who lost control of his plane and had to punch out (as he ended up below the “floor”) off the coast of San Diego. Turns out he was “scooching down” to reach the relief bag, and had to undo his harness, and in the process pressed against the stick. How’d you like to be the guy who lost a plane because his d*$k was too short!
As any actual military aviator would know, fighters and any machine that CAN be stuffed into a MAC C5, HAVE been stuffed into one. This is not to say that we dont routinely fly aircraft across both oceans using in flight refueling, we do.
The question is one of mission. Is it required that the aircraft lift from U.S. soil and deliver a strike using weapons loaded at it’s home base? Almost everthing we call “fighter,tactical bomber or multi-mission intradiction craft” in the U.S. inventory have that capability.
Common sense dictates that when a large number of units are needed at a place in the shortest amount of time, the most efficient method of transport is mass airlift. We have bases both in the U.S. and abroad to accomplish this mission. If time is not a factor, then sea transport will be considered.
So the answer would be, It depends. Time and political impact being the determining factors.
Operation Black Buck, a British plan to raid an Argentinian airfield during the Falklands War, involved two vintage Avro Vulcan bombers and no less than thirteen tanker aircraft – and that was only on the leg between Ascension Island and Argentina. The whole lot had to fly from the UK to Ascension first.
Actually, the plane was shot down and crashed in the Meditteranean. Both crewmen died.
The planes in question were F-111s, which are very large aircraft, bigger than most fighters.