What's this aircraft?

[Silver993tt]

Not good photos, taken with a crappy iphone unfortunately. It's an RAF aircraft by the looks of it and it was flying from Malta to Brize Norton last week. It had 4 engines on the rear, a bit like an old VC10:

[williamp]

[in before Ginetta girl/Eric MC/Supra]

It is a VC10. Some of tem have been cut up at Bruntingthorpe. his mihgt be one going the same way...

[/in before Ginetta girl/Eric MC/Supra]

[Silver993tt]

williamp][in before Ginetta girl/Eric MC/Supra said:

It is a VC10. Some of tem have been cut up at Bruntingthorpe. his mihgt be one going the same way...

[/in before Ginetta girl/Eric MC/Supra]

ah, ok thanks. I didn't realise that VC10s were still flying. It also looked quite small as I expected a VC10 to be longer/bigger but I suppose it is a 1960's aircraft at the end of the day.

It also looked to have 2 smaller engine pods on the wings, one either side. The left hand one can just be made out in the 1st & 2nd photos. What are these exactly?

Edited by Silver993tt on Saturday 27th November 08:08

[anonymous-user]

The pods are for in flight refuelling. The remaining VC10s are used mainly as tankers. The wing mounted pods are used to refuel fast jets (Tornado/Typhoon). They are due to be replaced by leased A330 Airbus' in the next couple of years.

[Silver993tt]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

a whole load of guys dressed in army gear got on the plane (who were in the terminal building and the flight was on the departure screens), so this one wasn't used as a tanker I presume unless they can be reconfigured quite easily.

Edited by Silver993tt on Saturday 27th November 10:30

[anonymous-user]

Silver993tt said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

a whole load of guys dressed in army gear got on the plane (who were in the terminal building and the flight was on the departure screens), so this one wasn't used as a tanker I presume unless they can be reconfigured quite easily.

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 27th November 10:30

They are equipped with seating aswell so can be used for either tanking or troop transport. Usually Tristars handle the Troop transport but reading posts on PPrune, it is rumoured there may be problems with the Tristar fleet at the moment.

[FourWheelDrift]

Silver993tt said:

It also looked quite small as I expected a VC10 to be longer/bigger.

Father Ted said:

That one is small because it's far away

Try standing next to one.

[Silver993tt]

FourWheelDrift said:

Silver993tt said:

It also looked quite small as I expected a VC10 to be longer/bigger.

Father Ted said:

That one is small because it's far away

Try standing next to one.

There was a 320 Airbus next to it earlier and it was about the same size apart from the tail which seemd larger that that of the Airbus. The length is the same as the Airbus but the VC10 has a larger wingspan, presumably because it's a much older and inefficient design.

Edited by Silver993tt on Saturday 27th November 11:23

[FourWheelDrift]

This is the longer Super VC-10 at Duxford. The T-Tail provides some nice shade on a sunny day.

[Silver993tt]

Never understood why aircraft manufactures went away from the delta tail configuration with rear engines. Whenever I flew on these kinds of aircraft (B727, BAC 1-11) they were much nicer to fly on and very quiet compared to the wing mounted engine designs. I heard it was something due to efficiency but I would have thought that having a clean wing without obstructions to the airflow such as engines would have give a far more efficient wing (or potential to).

I remember flying on BAC 1-11s and hardly hearing the engines even on take off. At cruise it was earily silent - a bit like a huge glider, just a bit of wind noise which I'm sure more modern fuselages would have eliminated to a greater extent.

[Dr Jekyll]

I read that part of the reason was that rear engines put the centre of gravity a long way back, so you need the tail to be big, therefore heavy, to provide enough leverage.

There might also be the increased risk to the airframe or other engines if one engine blows up.

[ktcanuck]

It's a structural issue. With the engine weight on the wing the wing structure carries the weight more evenly and is more efficient and lighter than if the wing has to carry the engine weight through the wing root as it does with engines on the rear fuselage.

[FourWheelDrift]

Lots of smaller jets, business and short haul commercial jets still use tail mounted engines like the Bombardier CRJ series - http://www.bombardier.com/en/aerospace/products/co...

[williamp]

Also easier for maintenance- engine removal, etc then a higher mounted engine.

[thatone1967]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

At great value for money for the taxpayer!

[FourWheelDrift]

Good value you mean surely? They've got the most out of the old VC-10 years after they were ever used as airliners but now they need replacing. So do we give America all our money and buy KC-135s no doubt with catches involving upgrades and future airframe purchasing involved (after all we do have a special relationship) or do we buy Airbus providing work and jobs for the 9,500 who work for Airbus here in the UK?

[Oxygen Thief]

I thought I would throw this in to the mix, you sit facing backwards in them as well.

Something to do with there being a better chance of you surviving a crash facing that way.

[Elroy Blue]

FourWheelDrift said:

Good value you mean surely? They've got the most out of the old VC-10 years after they were ever used as airliners but now they need replacing. So do we give America all our money and buy KC-135s no doubt with catches involving upgrades and future airframe purchasing involved (after all we do have a special relationship) or do we buy Airbus providing work and jobs for the 9,500 who work for Airbus here in the UK?

Well, Airbus have done a great impression of Westlands and managed to screw over the UK. Gormless Gordon managed to demonstrate his prowess with numbers and agree a contract of £13 BILLION to provide 13 (thirteen) aircraft, which we won't even own.

The US in the meantime are looking at spending $35 billion (Dollars) for 179 tankers. Do the maths.

[FourWheelDrift]

There's so much corruption involved with US defence contracts that I doubt it will remain that much or be concluded within stated time frames, they already took the contract away from Northrop-Grumman/EADS after an investigation so they can award it to Boeing instead. Who knows how much money is changing hands to guarantee it and further contracts.

[ninja-lewis]

Elroy Blue said:

FourWheelDrift said:

Good value you mean surely? They've got the most out of the old VC-10 years after they were ever used as airliners but now they need replacing. So do we give America all our money and buy KC-135s no doubt with catches involving upgrades and future airframe purchasing involved (after all we do have a special relationship) or do we buy Airbus providing work and jobs for the 9,500 who work for Airbus here in the UK?

Well, Airbus have done a great impression of Westlands and managed to screw over the UK. Gormless Gordon managed to demonstrate his prowess with numbers and agree a contract of £13 BILLION to provide 13 (thirteen) aircraft, which we won't even own.

The US in the meantime are looking at spending $35 billion (Dollars) for 179 tankers. Do the maths.

In fairness, Airbus are pretty innocent in the FSTA programme. They're just providing the tankers for the AirTanker consortium and AFAIK that's gone pretty smoothly.

The real issue with the tanker programme is the last government chosing to PFI the whole thing. So we're paying £10.5 billion for the consortium to provide up to 14 tankers and all the infrastructure until 2035. The RAF will spend an extra £2 billion on frontline elements over the cost of the programme (think paying aircrew etc). It's far from good value but the 179 for £35 billion comparision isn't comparing like for like either (it represents just the initial purchase cost paid to Boeing or Airbus excluding government furnished equipment and the cost of operating them over their planned lifetime).