Big Military Jet & Fighter escort

[LotusOmega375D]

Just seen a 2 or 3 engined airliner-based military jet with jet fighter escort off starboard wing heading NE high over E Northants. Any suggestions?

[perdu]

Tanking?


(C'mon man this IS PH, we need pictures)

[Eric Mc]

How many engines on the airliner/tanker?

[mph1977]

RAF A330 Voyager ( if two engined) or Tristar tanker or USAF / Dutch AF KC-10 Extender tanker (DC10 based) is the most obvious answer and the 'escort' is infact a 'customer'

[LotusOmega375D]

I think MPH is correct: tanker + customer. Not sure why they'd be over here though doing that. Maybe just heading towards North Sea. Don't often see routine military ops round here at the weekend either (apart from regular Hercs).

[Eric Mc]

Could be a USAF or French KC-135 - which would have four engines.

[Fluid]

Won't be a Voyager, we're not tanking with them yet.

[anonymous-user]

Fluid said:

Won't be a Voyager, we're not tanking with them yet.

Still flying around though. One departed Brize this morning went East to Prague returned around 15:30.

[NSXEverAfter]

Fluid said:

Won't be a Voyager, we're not tanking with them yet.

Not strictly true - we have been conducting voyager tanking trials with all types for some time.

[mph1977]

NSXEverAfter said:

Fluid said:

Won't be a Voyager, we're not tanking with them yet.

Not strictly true - we have been conducting voyager tanking trials with all types for some time.

i wasn't 100 % sure what the state of play with the voyager is, the likes of wikipedia and other none specialist stuff says 3 or 4 of the airtanker / RAF fleet are out and about ...

it's back to the OP and was the 'big' plane 2 (Voyager) , 3 (Tristar or KC10) or 4 (KC135) engined

and what was the escort / customer ( as that might help determine the user service i.e. if it;s tonka or typhoon it;s probably crab air if it was an f16 it;s the Septics or the Cloggies)

[Eric Mc]

You might need to translate some of that.

[jontysafe]

mph1977 said:

i wasn't 100 % sure what the state of play with the voyager is, the likes of wikipedia and other none specialist stuff says 3 or 4 of the airtanker / RAF fleet are out and about ...

it's back to the OP and was the 'big' plane 2 (Voyager) , 3 (Tristar or KC10) or 4 (KC135) engined

and what was the escort / customer ( as that might help determine the user service i.e. if it;s tonka or typhoon it;s probably crab air if it was an f16 it;s the Septics or the Cloggies)

RAF, USAF or RNLAF.

[Eric Mc]

F-16s could be Belgians, Norwegians, Turks, Danes and a few others.

[LotusOmega375D]

As per my OP the large jet had 2 or 3 engines.

On reflection I would go with TriStar. Despite getting my nic-nocs on it, I didn't really concentrate on the fighter before they both disappeared behind cloud.

[Eric Mc]

A three engined aircraft like the Tristar or DC-10 is difficult to distinguish from a similar sized twin engined aircraft because the third engine is either mounted in the tail (in the Tristar) or under the tailfin (DC-10/KC-10).

Although it's harder to gauge, the wing sweepback on the Tristar and DC-10 is more pronounced compared to the later twin engined airliners.

Tristar



DC-10/KC-10




Airbus A330

[dr_gn]

LotusOmega375D said:

Just seen a 2 or 3 engined airliner-based military jet with jet fighter escort off starboard wing heading NE high over E Northants. Any suggestions?

Something like this?



http://www.pistonheads.com/xforums/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Edited by dr_gn on Sunday 31st March 19:54

[Fluid]

el stovey said:

Fluid said:

Won't be a Voyager, we're not tanking with them yet.

Still flying around though. One departed Brize this morning went East to Prague returned around 15:30.

Another one went south to Pisa, I was on it.

The Civil registered one went to Cyprus.

[Eric Mc]

It wasn't one of the "Dosh Bombers" by any chance?

[anonymous-user]

Fluid said:

Won't be a Voyager, we're not tanking with them yet.

Surely there is one doing some sort of trials work? One of them must be tanking. There are videos of it!

[Ian Lancs]

Topbox said:

Fluid said:

Won't be a Voyager, we're not tanking with them yet.

Surely there is one doing some sort of trials work? One of them must be tanking. There are videos of it!

Trials prog is finished - clearance paperwork is in progress (from GR4 at least)