MoosePileit

If they track locals they may not allow a 17 ship, 7 hour, 1/3 million gallon formation flight.to log about 300 beans.. Or they might build more assualt strips in good airspace so I don't have to drone 2 hours per sortie to get my assualts! Oops, that's politics for ya....

Don't waste, but don't sweat it in flight- sweat the planning to get it the way it should be. Or just take the dispatch and hope it works out....

Riddler

Funny... about 18 months ago, I was pushing a plan to spend $400K of O&M (split between 2 bases) to save $4.5M of TWCF. Of course, the answer was no. It would have eliminated that 2 hour per sortie droning time.

hjs1971

Sputnik,

Tankers do not pi$$ away gas anymore when the receiver canx's or can't take fuel...we have a required matrix to run, first, you try to find another recvr, then you fly home with gear down, boards extended, burning an ungodly amount of fuel and shaking the rivets off the jet (literally), then you hold at flaps 50, gear down until you finally get a waiver for a heavy weight landing. If you EVER dump fuel in this mans Air Force, you will be on the carpet the next morning to explain your declaration of an emergency because that is the only way you will ever get approval to dump (the AOR and Edwards AFB have slightly different rules). 3 years ago, we dumped millions of pounds a year, now, I bet we're dumping 20% of what we used to.

FWIW, my squadron has an informal fuel burn tracking spreadsheet (by AC's name) and is posted by stan/eval every month. We don't put too much weight on it because there are SO many variables with every sortie, even a 2 hour local. I know most of our form 59's don't even have our AC's name in it due to airbridge staffing, etc. so good luck to TACC trying to track my fuel burn (and yes, I do all the little things to try and save gas too).

TankerDriver

How much fuel do we waste doing DV lifts and Capstones? That'll never stop though because this is a business man's Air Force.

You haven't seen the worst of it by far. I wouldn't be suprised when 3/4 of our training will be in the simulator with very little hands on the real thing in the not so distant future. I know that the KC-135 sims can now do formation, linked to another sim on the other side of the country. They're also going to incorporate tactics and threat recognition into it (like we have a choice in the tanker besides bending over and kissing your ass goodbye). Just wait and see what happens when there's a democrat in the White House again. We'll all be logging touch and goes on a friggen broomstick.

BrutusBuckeye

Yes...but what a fun flight that was!

USAFAviator

When I flew the 135, there was a thesis paper that circulated that actually stated that flying closer to .80 ot .81 was more cost effective than Best Range in the tanker. I can't remember the numbers exactly, but it was something like 5k more burned, but 30 mins saved...multiplied by time saved on 4 engines and airframe...compared to the cost of fuel at the time, it made more sense to fly faster.

BTW I noticed that the tankers were leading the way with overtankering of fuel...somehow I don't see that as a bad thing.

MoosePileit

e tu, Brutus? PM me you'd like- yep- the wx was clear and a bazill so the crappy ATC and goofball airspace just didn't matter.

hjs1971

That paper is the "Carson Speed" paper...99% cost, blah, blah, blah, more engineering speak, blah, blah...laymens terms: .792 mach is the best speed to fly a -135 at (as long as you are above FL280 ish...)

Sputnik

Sorry, wasn't trying to throw a dart. Flew with a guard guy the other day, former 135, told me he stopped counting at 1,000,000 lbs.

Most of the dumping I know of is in the AOR. My point, no matter what I do till retirement I will never save the 100,000 that occasionally gets dumped on a single sortie. Or used to happen.

hjs1971

Sputnik,

I didn't take it as a dart, just saying it's totally different today than it was 3 years ago, that's all...I remember the days of launching a 3 ship against a phantom receiver (somebody forgot to make sure he took off) and each of the 3 dumping close to 100k to get to landing weight...