RAF Voyager Tanker Aircraft Refuelling Tornado GR4
A Royal Air Force Voyager aircraft is pictured refuelling a Tornado GR4 during trials by QinetiQ.
Posted on 04/21/2012 9:49:33 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Cameron offered air tanker as VIP jet
(Reuters) - Senior British politicians and royals might consider making foreign visits in converted air force refuelling jets after a row over the use of a rented Boeing for a trade mission to tout European-made Airbus planes.
Britain's aerospace industry lobby group said proposals were being drawn up by the industry that could allow Prime Minister David Cameron and even the Queen to use modified Airbus jetliners that double as refuelling planes.
The proposals follow a British media storm after Cameron led a business delegation to Indonesia in a chartered Boeing 747 to oversee the sale of jetliners worth $2.5 billion (1.5 billion pounds) supplied by Boeing's European arch-rival Airbus.
Robin Southwell, head of the UK aerospace industry's lobbying association and also head of Airbus parent EADS in Britain, said he would propose the alternative use of the Royal Air Force jets when not needed for refuelling missions.
He compared the choice of airliner for Indonesia to a luxury car salesman turning up in a used Jaguar.
"If you are trying to sell a new Aston Martin to someone and you turn up in a used Jag and say the Aston Martin is the best thing since sliced bread and then drive off in the Jag, it isn't as smart as turning up in the model you tried to sell."
The RAF is leasing 14 Airbus-built Voyager jets which can refuel fighters or carry troops or medical evacuees in a normal cabin. When not needed they can be chartered out and the wing pods removed, leaving a normal-looking jetliner in RAF colours.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
RAF Voyager Tanker Aircraft Refuelling Tornado GR4
A Royal Air Force Voyager aircraft is pictured refuelling a Tornado GR4 during trials by QinetiQ.
How much does it cost to reconfigure the tanker to a charter passenger configuration then convert it back to tanker configuration?
Britain's aerospace industry lobby group said proposals were being drawn up by the industry that could allow Prime Minister David Cameron and even the Queen to use modified Airbus jetliners that double as refuelling planes.Too bad lighter-than-airships are out of vogue, nothing would be more appropriate to transport gasbags.
If the body fuel tanks are all below the cabin floor, none.
Just a question here. Why does that tanker have all those little passenger windows?
You just can't make this stuff up.
If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going.
At a break in the conference, the host served the Coke excutives Pepsi products. Needless to say, they did not get Coke's business.
When the A-330 MRTT was selected for the KC-X program, one of the KC-X requirements was the ability to be reconfigured to passenger, cargo, or medevac missions in no more than two man-hours with no more than two personnel.
The KC-45A met that requirement. The passenger configuration is palletized, and rolls into the cargo area section by section and locked into the cargo floor.
However, I do beleive the RAF Voyager is not even equipped with a main deck cargo hatch, and remains in a passenger configuration at all times.
Because the Voyager is a dual role tanker/transport.
Ok, thanks so much for the info.
Probably because the airframe started out as a passenger aircraft. May only have one assembly line producing all fuselages and the default configuration is for a passenger aircraft.
Thank you for the clarification.
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