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How an A330 topped up the tanks of a KC-30A
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This rare photo shows the moment a refueller refuels a refueller during Exercise Pitch Black, as a French A330 MRTT hovers above a RAAF KC-30A. As day turns to night, the Airbus aircraft – based on its civilian namesake – moves overhead, lowers its boom and delivers the fuel into the Australian aircraft’s receptacle above and behind the cockpit. (The ‘boom’, for those unaware, is the ‘dangling hose’ that delicately attaches to the target aircraft, completing an electrical circuit that starts the pressurised pumping of the fuel.)
The complex manoeuvre came after the RAAF crew spent 10 hours topping up the tanks of smaller aircraft with 90 tonnes of fuel. Air mobility officer Flying Officer Ethan Tattersall was behind the fuel delivery system controls in the cockpit, which uses a state-of-the-art VR setup to ensure the booms click into place, in mid-air.
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“We use a 3D vision system which helps with depth perception, making it look like real life even though we are seeing it through a camera,” he says. “We manipulate the boom using two joysticks and once we attach it to the receiver aircraft we can pump.”
As part of the exercise, the crew refuelled Indonesian Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons and Japan Air Self-Defense Force Mitsubishi F-2s. The ‘interoperability’ tasks are the primary objectives behind Pitch Black, which aims to help allied nations learn how to work together in case they are called to collaborate during a real-life military conflict.
The RAAF currently has seven KC-30As based at RAAF Base Amberley and operated by No. 33 Squadron. More than 100 tonnes of fuel can be transferred to smaller aircraft such as F-35s, Super Hornets and Growlers, alongside bigger platforms including the Globemaster III, the Poseidon and Wedgetails.
“We can refuel most types of aircraft the RAAF and our international partners have here on the exercise, either from the rear boom or the drogues which deploy from under each wing. Within 15 minutes of offloading fuel to the Japanese and Indonesian aircraft, we were reconfigured to receive fuel from the French tanker. This training with other Defence Forces from around the world on exercises like Pitch Black is invaluable and shows how well we can seamlessly work together.”
(Picture by SGT Craig Barrett, Defence)
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