Why US Air Force is Making Aerial Refueling HARDER?
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Aerial refueling was already a tricky task, but the new US Air Force tanker has made things a lot more difficult, but how and why, is #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT #longs
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🐢 Terry the Turtle. 👍👍👍
Welcome to time travel ... but it's Not What You Think!
@@thedeterrentforlife bhabi, video was uploaded earlier!! He published it 1 hour ago!!
@@NotWhatYouThink lol
Call me Mr Pedantic, but I'm not sure folk wanting something to *prevent* hair loss want to get 59% off - They want to keep*all* of it?
Refueling is getting harder for all of us.
🤣🤣🤣
LMAO
On god
Not unless you convert your car to run on Ammonia, than it’s only $0.30 per gallon.
Dude accually
When the new tanker was being developed they put out a survey to every active boom operator asking questions about the design. 98% of the boom operators stated they wanted a back window with direct view of the receiver aircraft...so of course, the Air Force went with a remote camera system that nobody wanted.
What? It's "Military Grade" You're telling me you don't want to use a unreliable 480p at best camera to replace the job your perfectly fine eyes could do without a problem?
@@bell3287 eyes can’t even agree on what colour a dress is.
@@kekistanimememan170 What does that have to do with anything?
@@user49917 He said in the video that Boeing is losing 5.4 Billion on this project.
I could guess the reason, while watching this video. And they pretty much said what I was thinking. It's All Going to be Automated. Which makes sense overall. Because the future is Drones. And of course you'll need drones to fuel your drones. If the purpose of drones is to remove all people from the battlefield so to speak. And why start with the shitiest cameras in the world? Well. I guess automated drones don't need to know what color the dress is. Just, Wear, the hole is to put the Tip In 😂
I air refueled many times as the fighter receiver pilot over the course of 25 years in the Marines (A-4 and A-6) and the Air National Guard (F-4) and can attest to the fact that from a receiver's perspective, the boom system is easier and safer than probe and drogue, particularly at night, in turbulence, or when in clouds. The KC-10 was a pilot's dream to refuel from compared to the KC-135, because with the KC-10, the receiving aircraft is much lower in the contact position, and thus out of the wake turbulence of the tanker.
👁👄👁 I wish I had a life story just like that. A few year back I had a citroen c3. I got a flat tyre, and you will never guess what happened when I tried to change it............................... etc. Thats sorta how mine would start lol. Its all good 👍
No offense, but how can P&B be more dangerous than boom? Short of the probe braking off and maybe damaging the receiver aircraft? How on Earth could it be more dangerous? The boom can physically damage the receiving aircraft. The two aircraft are in far, closer proximity with boom - are they not? Surely, collision is far more likely with boom than p&d? Obviously boom is easier for the receiving aircraft. That is a given. And I believe you liked boom better. But I really do not see how boom could be safer than p&d. I admit I could be wrong. But, from the outside, I doubt it. ☮
@@McRocket Flexible hoses are unpredictable. The connection/disconnection can only occur by ramming in and yanking out while booms have remote latches. The boom has a highly skilled operator helping either connecting or quickly flying the boom out of the way.
Frederf has it right in response to McRocket's query about boom refueling's safety superiority over P&D's. As the receiver I have a huge, very stable target, the tanker itself. With boom, the tanker is relatively stable even in turbulence due to the physics of mass and inertia. I simply fly formation on the whale while a skilled boom operator flies his/her probe into my receptical. I just fly as constant a formation position as possible, and the boomer does the harder part for me, making the exacting contact with my receptical. Additionally, at night, the boomer has considerably better visibility for the hookup provided by the director lights on the belly of the tanker, the tanker's white navigational taillight, and a probe light on the end of the boom. With P&D, I as receiver pilot have to chase a bobbing and weaving drogue which is poorly lit by a small red floodlight shining on my probe at night. Trust me, P&D is much trickier than boom refueling, especially at night and/or in cloud!
@@frederf3227 "its like threading wet spaghetti up a cats behind" lead pilot, vulcan bomber raid, falklands conflict.
Some of the Boeing’s current projects: Boeing tankers -> a mess Boeing Star liner -> a mess Boeing 737 Max -> a criminal offence mess Boeing 777X -> Heavily delayed Boeing 787 -> On going mess Yes, I’m pretty sure there is a major problem within the company.
Boeing? More like BoeNing.
@@Trigger.444 How about Boing?
Yeah well a screwed up FDA along with a pandemic will mess up supply chains.
I know this is 4 months old, but don't forget, Boeing is a major part of the NASA's SLS too! A mess.
President Obama cancelled the airbus order. It would of created us jobs. It's very rare that all the services wanted the same aircraft. More fuel carried, longer range and lower maintenance costs. He disregarded his military advisors due to some serious boeing pressure to buy their product. A great shame! ..
They should put an additional camera near the tip of the boom with a co-located range finder that the operator could transition to when the boom gets close to the refueling aircraft so the boom operator would always have accurate distance info and a much clearer close up picture of where the boom is in relation to the refueling aircraft. Boom! Problem solved…that will be 100 million dollars please.
Or at least 3 cameras being able to see the boom tip. Put IR tracking markers all over it and on the aircraft (on a part that’s only visible while refuelling)
Two cameras an average eye width apart and augmented reality goggles.
@Phil they'll have to make sure the markers sit inside the refueling area else it defeats the stealth portion or lights up any aircraft in the sky.
don't even need the range finder, have high relief markings around the port that you can match up with witness lines on the boom. Eyes are good at matching things up and you could do it without having to change your focus. You could make them look like those white balls they use for motion capture and stick them around the boom.
I was shocked they didn't have a camera mounted between the winglets, yeah...
I find it pretty hard to believe a US military project was crazy expensive and made something worse. That never happens.
I mean
💀
😆🤣😂😹😆
Ummm... should we spoil the fun for dem?
The sarcasm is strong with this one...
In my view the idea of autonomous refueling is great. But still including a window also makes sense in case the electronics break and you have to refuel a 2 billion dollar b2 over the pacific. Boeing bribed itself into this mess, so they deserve it.
It's insane how aerial refueling is done manually like this, its insane how skilled the operators on both sides must be to rendezvous in mid air with such prescision like that
I really wonder why any of this is done manually at all. The Crew Dragon docks with the International Space Station using computer guidance.
@@chrisg9606 a guidance system that works within the atmosphere would have to be far more complex, especially one designed to operate within such close proximity to a massive tanker. Its gotta take into account the minimum speed of the aircraft, the aircraft's relative position to the probe in all axis, the airspeed of the tanker, the elevation of the tanker, etc... its totally possible, but with so many variables (and therefor points of failure) doing it manually is probably for the best
@@Minecraft-hb1su Don't forget wind and turbulence. Outer space is trivial, there's no wind, no atmosphere, everything is perfectly precise.
My father flew the KC-135, loved every second of piloting it. Contrary to belief he wasn't as much of a boomer at the time. He said to him the boom method of refuelling seemed easier, but that can obviously be argued by both sides of the coin. He always said it was a challenge regardless, even more so for specific aircraft that needed it (he always hated refueling the A-10 due to them slowing down to near stall speeds just to stay within the airspeed range the A-10 could achieve, as well as the B-2 but less so than the Warthog)
And it was opposite with the SR-71. The blackbird had to slow down to near stall speed, and the tanker had to near overspeed.
Probably has alot to do with users training. If trained on one you'd probably prefer it to the other way of fueling. My dad came In Vietnam marine recon having trained on a nice m14 reliable. Then was issued a cheap shitty m16 that jammed once so he dropped it grabbed his side arm an stayed in the ditch combat ineffective. Good thing he was the radio guy. He was actually one saved his own life among others at 18 wounded scared thinking he's dying. They've changed alot on the rifles so please no argument about guns. But after they finally fixed the powder issues etc they would certainly prefer that today to the old m14 heavy less ammo carried etc. It's always about first what works 2nd user preferences.
So did anyone ever say “ok boomer”. Sorry I couldn’t resist.
The A-10 drivers would also smack the crap out of the nose a lot too. Saw a lot with dented noses when I was doing aircrew runs.
The boom is a waste. You can only fuel one aircraft at a time! With the drogue operation you can do two or three at a time. You do need to do two at a time. The lead and his wing man. Also, if you do the lead dude and his wing-man at the same time your saving time. What the hell is the air force thinking? The Air Farce got their asses burned when they started experimenting with aerial refueling and they were using the old KC-Spad piston propeller driven POS aircraft. What were they KC-1's or spads or something screwed up so that they could kill more pilots.
The Navy's automated tanker avoids the problem by making the receiver do all the work. It just flies straight and level and extends the drogue. An automated boom would be considerably more complicated. A fully automated boom would probably need LIDAR sensors, multiple cameras, and some sort of AI to steer the thing. In theory, this doesn't seem like a particularly complicated problem, but it's certainly more complicated than a simple autopilot and a winch. As for the KC-46, Boeing won the contract because they sued the Air Force until the military finally wrote a contract that was effectively tailored to Boeing's bid, eliminating all but a pretense of competition. It serves Boeing right to lose money on the contract they won through cronyism and lawsuits rather than through a compelling product. I find it absolutely delightful that the Air Force is waving the contract in Boeings face, reminding them that it was a fixed-price contract and the Air Force hadn't renegotiated anything, so Boeing needs to deliver or else...
It seems like the way the navy does mid air refueling is the easiest way to do it
The Hose and Drogue method is too slow for refueling large acft. With the boom system you can fill fighters at 2x the speed (around 2500 ppm), and large receivers about 5X (5000-7500 ppm). As I recall the average I saw with Drogue on the KC-135 and KC10 was about 1200-1500ppm. (Retired Boom with over 8500 hours)
@@Bsquared1972 didn't know that but then again the Navy uses smaller aircraft and their "Airport" is mobile
That's really funny.
Yes, and they can do more than drogue with the larger aircraft, like a C-130, etc!
Im currently working on the 46(nobody calles it peggy). The refueling has its problems but with the 46 we get a lot more tech in the air over the battlefield. It fills about 10 different roles while in the air.
I love how the person who actually works on it has 2 likes, but the people who don’t are up top. Anyway, thanks for the info!
This is a good example of short sightedness. Over reliance on automated processes reduces functionality and increases vulnerabilities. Redundancy is a tactical necessity for combat platforms and support. Eliminating human manpower costs makes economic sense but compromises mission critical elements. Cyber vulnerabilities, weather variables, and unanticipated damage from theater use in combat will plague any attempt to fully automate refueling. The human element should be viewed as essential. Designers should reduce the complexity of the task not eliminate manpower or they end up creating more vulnerabilities then they address.
Yup. Warfare is replete with stories about equipment that didn't work as designed but on-the-ground human ingenuity managed to overcome some of the technical failings of the equipment they were ordered to use. There's no substitute for actually going out and asking the people who use it for some input. They don't wear stars and medals on their uniforms though.
it's called "product development"... it's sorta like how people go on and on about how the f-35 has failed because according to them we should stick with the older plane... not realising that at some point also the older plane was too a controversal new design what you're saying is like we should have stuck with two engineers in a plane and not bothered to develop more reliable technology... obviously other advantages arise from not requiring so many humans... really important tactical ones like not having to loose as many people
@@DarkShroom No. You're saying this. Not me. I'm saying that losing redundancy in a combat platform isn't a "better" product. It's a cheaper product. The cost savings comes with increased vulnerabilities that could compromise the aircraft's combat mission profiles. Make of that what you wish. It's a trade off. Not "better".
@@DarkShroom That's quite a leap because that's NOT what he said. He spoke about the attempt to reduce men from mission-critical elements. Automaton makes economic sense but adding a person is a necessary redundancy to keep a platform from failing due to the vulnerabilities inherent within automated systems. In essence: automated in conjuction with a person is good, automated completely removing the person is bad.
Cost savings in reduced manpower? Those hundreds of millions of dollars paid to manufacturers could have gone to pay salary for ten or twenty years. Besides the new system will need a computer repairman on every tanker.
I maintained the in flight refueling system on the KC-135 from 1966 to 1970. Some of the airplanes I worked on were built in the fifties. It's a great system that works well. There is as reason the KC-135 has been around for so long. IT WORKS Boeing has been screwing things up for years now. Looks like they still are.
Not just Boeing but the bureaucracy in the military too. Whether intentional money laundering or shear incompetence both parties fail to innovate at times.
I could guess the reason, while watching this video. And they pretty much said what I was thinking. It's All Going to be Automated. Which makes sense overall. Because the future is Drones. And of course you'll need drones to fuel your drones. If the purpose of drones is to remove all people from the battlefield so to speak. And why start with the shitiest cameras in the world? Well. Automation again. With people being the guinea pigs for research into drones. Let That Sink In 😂 😳 I built the last generation of re-engined KC-135s. And did the boom operators structures. It's not as comfortable as it looks 😏
@@My-Pal-Hal Comfortable or not, it's real 3D and it's a job! The next 100 years we are going to try and match humans with machines but what we will find out is how we underestimated some human tasks. But while we replace humans with machines, humans are losing capabilities and becoming increasingly hard and greedy to employ.
Yep - Boeing executives started pinching pennies and forgot that building crappy aircraft is very expensive in the long run.
@@justins8802 Yup and well Ford and Chevy learned that too as did their workers but worse yet is that the CEO culture of overpaying CEO's to increase profits is still alive and well. That extreme wealth gap is never a good thing!
i figured depth perception would be the biggest complaint. i doubt the laser rangefinder will alleviate much of that, as knowing the distance and seeing the distance are two very different things, and seeing is much more intuitive when it comes to maneuvering the boom into position.
VR goggles and a VR camera would be the best solution in order to create a 3d image. Could probably be achieved for under 5k.
They ARE using stereoscopic cameras and a 3D screen & glasses.
It's all just heading towards eliminating the people all together. So drones can fuel the drones. And people are the guinea pigs for research for robots. Let that sink in 😂 😳
yes of course but military procurement is anything but common sense and affordable
@@maximuskay1 that's exactly what I was thinking. Put two cameras about a foot apart, and feed them into vr goggles. Put the camera on a live swivel so head movements track to the cameras
10:50 "But the operators also miss seeing the tip of their boom. The camera feed doesn't show the tip. Which in my opinion is the best part to look at." 😩
Former KC-135 Boomer here. The job was intense but definitely doable. I would have never wanted to to it virtually. Or without the tactile feedback afforded by the mechanical boom controls of the 135. I don't know if any tech could match real world depth perception. If it does, they certainly didn't make the effort to apply it on the new birds. All of which should have been vetted way before any contracts were awarded.
Didn't know about the mechanical controls, i know in large wheel loaders i can feel the depth of my blade in hydraulic over hydraulic systems but in the newer and "fancier" electronic over hydraulic its alot harder and more muted.
Stereoscopic displays are good enough for surgery.
@@SnakebitSTI That's true. But I'm not sure how that particular tech would apply to operations that have such large variations in range to the desired focal point. It seems that it would be doable to have a variable focus camera system.
hearing about another software/automation fail from Boeing, the company who I'm told will most likely be or at this point maybe is making our armed semi/fully autonomous "loyal wingman drones" is sooooo comforting.
after seeing the 737max fiasco documentary and stuff like this.. i feel like the McDonell Douglas merger has ruined Boeing
*Drones start transmitting hostile IFF signals
@@chiefturion7134 Lets hope Ace Combat will not happen
As far as I know the Stingray tanker drone hasn’t had that much issues in its development. It has already successfully flown and landed on carriers, even moving ones and also already refueled Super Hornets.
If you knew about the shenanigans that go on in boeing production plants, you’d never fly again.
The mistake they made was not taking one of the old tankers and converting it to the new system for testing. That way, if the new system failed, only one airframe would be messed up. As it is, the AF got stuck with a fleet of aircraft that kinda work.
...er, no. The old tankers are not something you can just convert to fix the problem. The military needs NEW tankers; the airframes are getting too old. The technology is absolutely there to make a camera system work well. It looks like Boeing cheeped out and refused to actually do its job, instead thinking that some basic cameras could do well enough. In typical Boeing fashion, they took a chance to win big and made an outrageous failure.
@@Raptor747 I wasn't saying extend the life of the current tankers. I was saying take a tanker that has a couple of years left on it, and test the new system. If it works, great! If not, try another system until a workable one is found,
I'm sure they test the stuff way before they even put it on all of their birds
@@dark12ain All of the new ones come from the factory with the cameras. Whatever testing was done, it wasn't enough real world.
I kind of agree, but would do it the other way around - put the old systems in the new aircraft. You'd be surprised how many times, or for how many decades, the exact same device shows up simply because it works and there's no meaningful advantage to reinventing the wheel. In the case of the KC-135, there's nothing wrong with the existing system, it is the airframe, elements of which was designed during the 1940s, that is in need of replacing. If the new refueling arrangement cannot do as well as the old one on an identical modern airframe, then the answer is to chuck the new fangled junk out in favour of retaining the old arrangement. They didn't keep the same navigation equipment as WW2 bombers in their counterparts into the 1980s for fun, they did it because they worked, were reliable, and the crews knew them already. Sure most people turn to GPS now, but there's always a fear that being solely reliant on a new system that might be easily exploited (GPS is easily jammed for example) or just not live up to the manufacturer's sales pitch leaves a crew with nowhere to head but towards failure and death - don't be too keen to junk solid, well-understood subsystems.
It's quite ironic that Boeing still hasn't solved all teething problems on KC-46 yet while Airbus has already been testing automatic refuelling on A330 MRTT
Not just testing, it’s already operational, co-developed with Singapore Air Force, certified for use with F-15, F-16 and A330.
@@eatdriveplay The Boeing KC-767 is also operational with the Japanese Air SDF. It's almost as if these companies only give their least efficient stuff to us...
@@jeffbenton6183 not with automatic refueling and 3D vision though :)
@@eatdriveplay And that is exactly why the Japanese KC-767 RVS works better then the KC-46.
@@eatdriveplay The whole point of the video is why THAT is a horrible idea
One of the big benefits of the traditional boom is that the receiving craft only needs to maintain position, likewise for the pilot of the tanker. Now you have the boom operator working from a nearly "stationary" position to actually make the connection. Contrast with the pilot having to "chase" the drogue. I've never heard a pilot that preferred probe-and-drogue over boom, except specifically playing DCS (since there's no boom operator, so it's entirely on the pilot to line things up and make contact, with much lower margin -- normally handled by the boom operator which doesn't exist in DCS -- whereas probe-and-drogue gives a larger target and margin for maintaining contact.)
The boom in dcs is usually somewhat picky too. While the drogue system will sometimes just snap onto the probe.
As a former KC-135 Instructor Pilot, I don't understand why they are trying to fix something that was not broken. Despite my piloting skills (former ENJJPT IP as well) I always respected the abilities and professionalism of my boom operators. I even doubted my own ability to do what they did. I always felt that they were underpaid too.
Ditto. Either automate it completely and ditch the boom operator - or freaking leave them on board and stick them in the back. There’s no advantage to the tech; launch a 46 and 135 and who’s going to most likely give gas - the 135. There’s way to much to break on the 46. In 2500+ hours on 135 never had “a boom operator problem” make us go home.
@@phatkid6811 They're doing R&D with DoD money is what. It's transitional tech development. You don't want your first foray into automated systems to be after zero dev in any related system.
Well... From an engineers perspective, if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
it seems like the obvious answer to higher ups wanting more features to pump up the cost for better profit without just ruining the thing like they did would be to just add features that assist the boom operator rather than change their whole way of doing things. give them HUD they can turn on over the window with range info and a highlight on the boom tip and receiving port, cameras feeds with IR digital nightvision object recognition and edge highlighting placed next to the window for a quick reference but not in the way. all this shit could actually help or be totally ignored by the operator while racking up millions for the company and the engineers who went ahead with their shitty implementation are at fault for not managing their superiors expectations, its like half the job of an engineer.
iPhone: "You have 3 UHD cameras with adjustable zoom, saturation, shutter speed and aperture. All that, for $1.1k" Boeing: "If you give me a couple of billion dollars, I'll give you some of our regular planes with a boner and 6 cameras running at 480p monocrome with no adjustment capabilities. Not even an anti-glare lens coating, I literally got these cameras for $15 on Wish"
Try making a picture of a black coat against the sun with only 10% of light blocked. No, your iphone won't do that. In fact, you'll likely damage the sensor.
With a what
@@masteereeer580 👽
"I'll just leave one of the most important part of plane to be problematic so I can redo it again, double the cash"
Boeing: "Don't you worry a thing. You're not footing any bill, after all. It's the public's problem."
I am an aircraft Technician. I worked on the KC 10 Great video thanks for sharing. New Subscriber ✈️🎵🎶🐟🚤🌊🤜🤛
Welcome aboard!
Seems like it would be a good application for first-person cameras and VR headsets or something. So the boom operators could basically “BE” the boom themselves and just direct themselves into the receptacle rather than trying to see it from a very far away 3rd person angle. Insanity that they developed this in black & white without aperture/exposure control.
As a prior KC-10 crew chief, the KC-46 program pisses me off. The tanker contract should have been awarded to Airbus's A330 MRRT, which is already well proven in other countries air force's. With the soon to come KC-Y program, hopefully we get the MRRT as Lockheed's LMXT instead of the KC-46 again. As far as automated refueling Australian MRRT's have automatically refueled Singapore F-16s earlier this year.
Exactly bruh. How the fuck is Boeing so incompetent. No wonder why there were corruption charges.
And no. Both a330/767 have prior to contract been used by other countries. The idiot US airforce after awarding contract BOTH bid on using Existing refueling apparatus as their basis, then changed it to a new flying boom that may be partially automated. Your automation F16 Singapore is via drogue and was done a decade ago by Boeing as well. The problem is the boom via remote station without the automation features which would require existing aircraft to be modified to align the two.
It was awarded to the A330 MRRT but Boeing through political lobbying and complaining enough got the contract tossed and the contest restarted they of course won
@@MRMONKEY433 Well, someone pointed out the obvious, the a330 did not FIT into the existing aircraft support structure buildings worth BILLIONS making the Boeing bid much superior. Now one could argue payload capability and here I also agree with them again, if you want payload, go with an even bigger aircraft.
So we’re you on the source selection team?
I flew on a kc-135 saw refueling it was amazing
It’s so crazy how a project can get so far with such a huge glaring error.
Oh its entirely possible.
Welp at least the glaring issue is now exposed
Why is an operator even going doing it anyway? Seems you could easily build a computer system to auto lock onto transmitters placed around the receptacle and automatically close the distance between the two.
Navy - develops an autonomous landing system so it can land helicopters on the small landing pads at the back of ships in rough seas with laser location systems. Airforce - how make camera good? Human no see
RAF Pilots in 1982 were practicing AAR with the Vulcan & Victor prior to the first Black Buck mission during the Falklands conflict. One pilot described AAR as trying to shove cooked spaghetti up a cat's backside.
Navy pilots called the Air Force drogue, "the wrecking ball."
My Question. What RAF Research project was working with cooked spaghetti? And are the cats in some sort of Witness Protection Program 😂 🤔 😳 🙄
funny!
“It’s not what you think” is now my favorite phrase.
My uncle used to do that (retired) and he told some crazy stories including refueling a I think a blackbird or something a multi million dollar plane and he said within a blink of a eye it went from behind them to in front and disappearing boom operators need more respect for the sheer skill needed
I just hope that their fuel flow parameters are set better than mine. I often find that my refuelling systems let me take in way more than they should!
I was a C-130, loadmaster and even I figured out that it would have been much more effective to keep the boomer in the back. Way cheaper and much easier to refuel any aircraft.
and looking at the comments, you see a majority not even considering this but jamming more equipment in.
But then someone would be able to see the tip and that might offend someone.
Thumbnail : Indian Air Force IL76 Tanker and 4 Mirage 2000 . Thanks 🙏
Love the fact that the title says "US air force" while the thumbnail shows shows indian air force french jets being refueled by a soviet tanker
I'm not sure if you did a video on it, but I couldn't find one so I would like to recommend that you do video on the E-6B mercury, it's the Navy doomsday plane, that has the ability to send and receive messages with submarines which are submerged which is very difficult, it can also give orders to launch missiles from said submarines as well as giving orders to nuclear capable bombers. And the best part is they can also launch land-based icbms from within the aircraft. To make it even more interesting the aircraft is designed (to a certain extent) to survive the effects of a nuclear blast, to include thermal and electromagnetic radiation.
“Can you put a thread through a needle with a fan on?” “Yes..?” Air Force: *“You’re hired!”*
🏆
Let me lick the thread with lip gloss on and I might be able to thread a needle with a fan on.💋😎
“With a fan on” Yes Air Force:your promoted
This is what happens when you don't fight corruption. The airforce originally planned to purchase the superior and proven airbus mrtt. Now the airforce is stuck with a only partly operational tanker, which is more expensive and has less capacity. And now 10 years later, it seems like the government is going to buy the airbus anyways, now renamed the LMXT.
You think corruption is why the USAF didn't pick Airbus? You might want to have a think about that. Before the current string of Boeing failures Airbus had many, many design flaws that for the most part still exist. Software controlled, non coupled side sticks for starters.
@@jameshisself9324 The airforce did pick the airbus. It was not until Boeing pulled strings at the DoD in order to reissue the tender, tailored to their POS KC-43
@@romanpul yes, a popular theory
@@romanpul Boeing filed and won a protest based on technical grounds.
@@jameshisself9324 Oh really? Well care to list all these alleged "many, many design flaws that for the most part still exist"? With your sources and links of course. Because basically I call BS on your comment. Especially that crap about sidesticks.
At least it's nice to know that Boeing gets to pay for their backwards engineering for once.
At 6:18 that fuselage is from a 767 that was owned by ABX air in Wilmington, Ohio. My dad was a mechanic for them from thr 80s till 2009 and worked on that aircraft many times
Who would win: A 500 million dollar camera program with over a decade of development. One see-through boy. Automation in refueling systems is great, and should be a thing. It'll make everything way faster and easier. They should also still have a manual back-up system and train on it for emergency use.
This trend to me is engineers egos getting in their way. Instead of taking a step back and looking carefully at what works and whether it makes sense to change it... It seems like they change stuff a lot of times at Boeing especially under the assumption newer will be better. Anyone who has spent some time taking photos with a cell phone camera would know a normal camera sensor would do this. Any cursory test should have shown it. It makes me sad, I want them to do good and make us all proud of our aerospace industry. They've got serious problems over there though stuff like this camera issue should have never made it past cursory testing.
There is a huge difference between complete automation and replacing human vision with a camera. Automation on tanker's part is pretty simple. For a probe and drogue aircraft, just make tanker fly in level, a capability present on any autopilot system in the last 70 years.. For a tanker with a boom, put something like a radio or coded IR transmitter on the F-16's refuel port, and a bunch of sensors on the tanker so it will triangulate the 3d coordinates of the refueling port. It can also calculate booms position with two angles and the length of boom, so its a matter of moving actuators to make these two coordinates meet. With some smart coding to make boom approach from front and top, automation software doesn't need to see anything beyond these two points and would be a simple arduino project for mechatronics undergraduates. Replacing human vision with cameras is just a stupid idea. Even today, human eye has greater Dynamic range than best DSLRs (21 EVs vs like 14 EVs). So when scene is bright, we are just better at picking details in shadows, or vice versa.. Our eyes are also less prone to flare or optical aberations (since its essentially a single lens, focusing on a curved plane), so less of the bright area will have impact on other areas. They come in pairs so we have automatic depth perception. Plus, they come free of charge (on the operator). A camera does not offer anything above this, period. Even at night, its just better to give night vision googles to the operator instead of IR cameras.
Are you using logic? You know that's not allowed in today's modern military industrial system where we rely on dead super companies who are basically invincible and can build complete garbage for tons of money with no consequences. Imagine where we'd be if we had forward thinking and hard working development partners.
If its that simple, what do you think holding them from doing that, and trying this roundabout method. I don't think only for fleecing budget, they can do that without making technical mishaps
Automation ain't that simple. The main problem is the vast amounts of variables that go into in air refueling
@@dimasakbar7668 I wonder if a reason for going with cameras instead of a window is the near-death sentence for the boom operator(s) in the event of a needed bailout? I saw a documentary on the KC-135 that commented about that and the constant problems with fuel bladder degradation leading to a buildup of fumes in the rear compartment.
@@dimasakbar7668 "fleecing budget" that is the answer lol
0:42 could you do your next video on theories how the they on the left passed their physical? also, brilliant viewer engagement tactic with the stock footage selection. kudos
One benefit of boom vs probe-and-drogue is that boom can be used to tow damaged planes. I think it happened multiple times during the Vietnam war. F-4 were 'towed' by KC-135 back to the base.
“Ariel refueling is so hard…” Air Force: “yeah…” Also Air Force: *“How about we take it up a notch?”*
It's just two aircrafts mating how can it be that difficult unless you're a flying panda 😁
Yeah, the camera makes it really difficult. How about we blindfold the boom operators? BAAAWAAAAHAHAHAAAAAAAA! That'll fix 'em!
honestly the prone and drogue seems way simpler because it seems safer and also gives a little bit more wiggle room
Yeah, until you need to refuel large aircraft in a timely fashion.
Less control over the probe.
One small advantage to the boom is that with probe and drogue, the receiving pilot is the one that has to thread the needle. And they might be stressed out from just having been in combat, might be towards the end of a long flight, etc. With boom refueling, the receiving pilot just has to keep fairly straight and level and just keep the plane within a certain box, and the pressure of threading the needle goes to the boom operator, who's been chilling out unstressed and rested (relatively speaking) in their tanker for a while.
Dave has a good point
Just cant refuel big bombers in a timely manner tho, and the progue and drogue method is also really difficult at night and low weather conditions, according to a pilot who has refueled from both, the boom is easier overall.
Depth perception is highly underrated. Try walking around with one eye closed or covered, or as a passenger in a car to see how much difference it makes. If they wanted a good remote system, two cameras and V/R goggles could be really good. In fact, with a pair of cameras at the "window" position and a pair of cameras near the end of the boom, with a switchable p-in-p view in the goggles, they could really help out the boom operator. But what do I know? I'm not a mega-billion dollar company that pays people huge amounts of money to come up with these designs.
Hello, you have a very informative and entretaining channel please keep up with this because it seams that is your passion. I would love for you to make a tutorial on how to search information or simple give some website of cientifics papers and studies about topics like: naval engineering, aeuronautical technology or physics and chymestry. Thanks and greetings from Argentina ; )
Is nobody talking about the tools and broken bits that the Boeing engineers left inside their brand-new KC-46?
????
Perfect example of how not every new technology is "better". sometimes old school is good enough, or downright Superior.
At the very least they should add the window at the rear....this way when the system fails a human can step in.
@Chris technology Is still advancing, the problem Is there Is for some reason a need too integrate "high tech" everywhere, even to places where It Is not needed
@@wiredelectrosphere totally agree.
@Chris agreed
Except you're missing the point. It's all going towards complete automation. So drones can fuel the drones. That's the point of drones. To remove people from the battlefield. And everything done by humans, will be done remotely. Even this Old School Guy that built KC-135s can see that. ... kids nowadays 😂🖖
I'm honestly really interested in the mechanisms that hold the fuel lines in place. What happens if one of the aircraft fly towards eachother? Does it have a suspension system to allow that much leeway? What if they pull away from eachother? Does it just stay stuck together and pull the other aircraft or is there a release mechanism that kicks in automatically when there's enough tension? Is there some sort of suction to attach the refueling and the refueled aircraft together? Or is it a mechanical mechanism? Does it lock in place with pins or threads or friction or magnets?
Hard to believe this, my god. Thanks for the report. Makes sense that this will all be automated. Seems like a pretty straight forward task. I guess the issue was having to upgrade every plane to be refuelled to get this done (1000s of planes of different models)
Woaa Thanks! For using Indian Air Force Refuel IL78 tanker with those IAF Mirage 2000 as the thumbnail of this video... It was really NOT WHAT I THOUGHT!!! 🤣
If the robots refueled aircraft, there would be no tanker lady to talk to during the refueling.
I know that Boeing has amply demonstrated their incompetence left and right in recent years, but this is beyond ridiculous! A kid in a trade school would design this better. The best thing to do would be to scrap this embarrassment and procure the aircraft that won the original bidding process, anyway, the A330 MRTT / KC-30A Voyager.
This way saved $4.96 per unit though.
This won't be Boeing's fault. The Air Force will have given them a list of requirements and Boeing will have met them or they wouldn't have been paid.
@@ianphil397 Well that is not true. Especially as the Air Force is only paying 80% of the contract price on delivery. Boeing royally screwed this programme up from the start. It didn't even meet the USAF specifications and why it lost out to the A330MRTT which incidentally can fly 3 drogues or 2 drogues AND a boom. And it carries 20% more fuel.
just like how navy is decommision all of the LCS ships
@@hksp well, that is what happens when you let an aircraft manufacturer make ships.
I'm not in the military but I saw a documentary about a refueling plane (I think it was British) in which the boom operator had several cameras and screens to have different viewing perspectives of it and the receiving aircraft! I think it had at least a camera on both wings and a rear one, all with high resolution video.
So it's less "the U.S. Air Force is making it harder" and more "Boeing's incompetence is making it harder."
Its called US Air Force changed the deal after the fact and Boeing did not want to do it. I do not blame them. They signed up for one deal and Air Force pulled out the rug on them. LIkewise you have not been on a government contract judging by your comment. The engineers are usually NOT allowed to do work until some tweedle dumbo ladder climbing POS eggs and braid says so as he has to show paper trail for every bolt nut and screw to properly climb the ladder and then and ONLY then can engineers do their jobs the way THE POS government puke say it has to be... Regardless of reality. Every engineer already KNOWS how to do this if one wants to do it automatically, but Air force forced them to be backwards compatible without using the old hardware/systems. Beyond stupid.
No, it's the Air Force's own fault. Boeing wanted to sell them the better color vision system but the Air force decided to go with what they have now.
@@PatrickLipsinic Narrator has it completely wrong, that is NOT how government contracts work. Boeing AND Airbus "won" the contract by using the older systems. There was no remote boom operator portion of the contract. NONE. US Air Force changed the terms after the fact and determined how things went from there as it was added ON. At this point Boeing, or Airbus would have NO SAY on how ANYTHING works other than proposing new solutions. In short, you have a government puke dweeb climbing a ladder making the decisions, not engineers. I put 100% of the blame on the Airforce. Boeing has plenty of Shit they are to blame for but the refueling aircraft? No.
Yeah,.. nah. Boeing is filling a contract like the other dude said. And it's all just steps towards remote fueling, and total Automation. Your incompetence is in not seeing the future. Especially when it's already here.
@@PatrickLipsinic If it meets the program criteria and sucks then it's not the product that sucks.
I work with these jets frequently, and I can confirm everything about them is a heaping dumpster fire
Maintenance or boom operator or something else? Whichever job it is, which do you think is the hardest on the Pegasus planes?
Watching this video I kept thinking of autonomous refueling. Glad it was covered in the end. Or in this case the future?
Geez Boeing really is a shadow of its former self. Shows you what complancency and almost monopoly position does.
Nothing like being on the boom for 20 minutes in a big jet behind a KC-135 at night and in and out of weather. My flight suit was drenched in seat.
I hope Boeing loses a lot of money on this contract. Airbus originally won the contract but Boeing challenged it and got it, so Boeing should be happy.
I hope not that money is coming out of our pockets and putting our protectors at risk so no I hope they don't
@@dark12ain it was a fixed price contract and the USAF has been very eager to remind Boeing of this fact.
@@dark12ain Nope its Boeing's entire loss. The USAF made sure it was fixed price after they were denied the aircraft they wanted and had this boondoggle foisted on them. They knew it was a disaster waiting to happen.
@@1chish it’s fixed price and Boeing loss but if Boeing goes into bankruptcy, guess who will have to throw cash at their cheating hands ?
@@Pierrot9315 Well US taxpayer Dollars have been supporting Boeing for decades through over inflated defence contracts like the KC-46. The difference here is that the overruns are down to Boeing not the Government as always happened before. That was my point. However we all know that if Boeing goes belly up then the US Government will find some backdoor way to prop it up. "Too big to fail". It will be interesting to see how the WTO views any sales post a Government bail out....
This channel da best when it comes to dis military stuff
They likely introduced the RVS system because the airframe body itself could be reused for other intents of that particular Boeing jet. Having a position in the back where an airman lies down to witness the boom would likely conflict with other airframe designs where the plane isn't a a mid-air refueler. A digital station somewhere inside the plane seems like a modular idea, keeping the airframe more "ubiquitous" for other uses.
The Dutch RNLAF former KDC-10 (a modified DC10) was fitted in the beginning of the 90's with a similair system because they could not fit it with a Window, otherwise its pressure cabin could leak. But the flew 25years with it and it works perfectly. Now they switched to the Airbus a330 MRTT with Nato Allies with a similair system as the kc46.
One of my high-school teachers was a pilot during the Vietnam War and he said that matching the speed of the tanker was the scariest part since they went WAY slower than his aircraft. He said it was like he had to turn off the engine and try to glide while hooked to a tanker that was throwing turbulence at you
Ah ol KC-97 action, guy must be old school.
It simply needed a synconized navigation fly drone to hold the pump rod end steady to insert. This way the pipe can be loose flexy stream tube, with a insert head, instead of stiff long tube, dangling a funnel. Example, helicopters would fly over head from behind, for drone arrival under. Jets/planes, below the tanker craft to pend.
Former Dutch airforce KDC-10's have worked perfect with camera's for years.....
I've been on both ends of KC-135s being refueled by booms, off loader and receiver. The amount of skill required to accomplish the approach and hookup is amazing and a testament to the crews of both planes. Each system(boom/boom-drogue) has its advantages and disadvantages.
And I wonder how many people caught one of the advantages to drogues. ROTOR CRAFT 😏 You don't want to get a Stiff Tip,.. caught in those swinging blades 😂🤣😂 😳 🙄 😬
I remember going into a kc-135 at an air show and getting to lay down in the boom operator position, epic
Booms have much higher fuel flow than hose/drogue. Not a huge issue on small/medium jets but on bombers the drogue would barely keep up with fuel burn
I would say that it is best to have the boom operators back where they can see, using stereo vision for depth perception, and able to adjust for lighting. If not maybe stereo cameras can be used for better depth perception.
I'm baffled they didn't include an exposure compensation system. Like the whole time during development, no one thought an overly high contrast situation might come up?
Someone probably did suggest it, but its Boeing, so likely they were threatened with dismissal for their trouble.
They actually did, several in fact. They just didn't work as advertised, some settings made things worse.
Great thing to see when im shipping out for air refueling august 2nd. Nice!
UK tanker aircraft in my day used a flexible hose which was easier and less chance of snapping the end of the probe off and leaving it in tankers basket. US solid booms were more prone to damage.
I watch a few of these history/military information channels, but your channel is by far the best. You consistently provide the most accurate information, and have the most entertaining dialogue
Think of all the problems that the automatic refueling system could cause
Hackers can hack the drones and refuel their flying cars for free
@@Zoonya404 farming glitch irl
“Refueling is getting harder” Off topic: I’ve heard times when out jets had their probe stuck to a basket of a refueler and had to yank it out, taking the basket with us… this happened three times in my career. I think the Air Force hates the Navy’s aviation department sometimes.
The decision to go with a remote vision system instead of a window was driven by lots of things, but not really automating refueling, . You can make that work on an existing windowed tanker once the real technological hurdles are overcome, lots of tests on KC-135s exploring technology to make that work have already been done. The main reason is cost. If Boeing (or Airbus) were to put a traditional boom pod and window in the back, it would require redesign and recertification of the already-FAA certified structure/pressure vessel, which take lots of time and money compared to just slapping some cameras outside the pressure vessel and calling it a done deal. It was never part of the official acquisition strategy (until talking about RVS 2.0), and it wasn't part of the KC-46 requirements. If Boeing designed anything on the KC-46 anticipating auto-AR, they did so outside the requirements hoping to gain an advantage down the road when they started to push the idea of auto-AR on the USAF. Another reason on the KC-46 is size. To meet the cargo requirements, you have to have two pallets side-by-side in the cargo compartment. This takes up the entire width of the aircraft, with no room for someone to walk to the back of the aircraft. The KC-10 is wider, so there's room to walk back to the boom pod. If they went with a window, some missions would require choosing between carrying the cargo needed, or offloading fuel, which would hamper deployments where the tanker is carrying the supplies for relocating aircraft while also refueling them to get there.
Horse$hit!
My dad/USAF.... flew the early jets- 33, 84, 86, 100, 104....and at that time, all hose. He's still around @92; "Yeah, tankin' was always "interesting"; it will wake you up."
Wonder if they made it harder on the human operators so they could raise the incident rate and the pitch and sell the autonomous system to improve safety.
Wouldn't surprise me at all.
Yeah,.. right. OR. Maybe it's another step towards remote, and total automation. So that drones can fuel drones. And that's just more people removed from the battlefields of the future. I wonder which is more likely 🤔 ... some people's kids
THE FUCKING HELICOPTER IS REFUERING, WHILE IN TRANSIT, WITH A JEEP UNDERNEATH, JESUS CHRIST. Mad mad mad props to the crew of every heli
''Back in my day we had Low-Resolution Black and White Television Sets with 4 channels and it worked just fine!'' ............Yes, Mr. Boeing.
This is a classic example of a product engineered and designed in a vacuum. All this could have been addressed if Boeing worked together with current deployed boom operators (PLURAL, the more the marrier). This often happens with Boeing and is also the reason why their starliner is riddled with problems. It is a symptom of bureaucracy within the company and is caused by too much funding from the government, Boeing is not a self sufficient business.
They did.
@@johnp139 clearly not enough or they didn’t listen. Anyways Boeing is know the be bureaucratic and manager projects from the top down
@@johnp139 True, Boeing did, until the reverse take over by McDonnell-Douglas.
Hi have great day/night everyone
Thanks
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The automatic one should be a electric prop plane with solar on the top
Wouldn't work because the planes they are refueling won't be able to fly slow enough without losing altitude.
@@Swiggityswagger a prop doesn't need to be slow, or just make it use prop until it needs to refuel then it uses some kind of jet
Electric wouldn’t work until the plane it is refueling is also electric. Better to have both planes use the same fuel, no wasted weight that way.
USAF atnd Navy pilots always used to say they much preferred the RAF probe and drogue system back in my NATO exercise days
"But the operator also miss seeing the tip of their boom, the camera feed doesn't show the tip, which in my opinion, is the best part to look at" haha I chuckled on that, no homo
F-16: "Careful tanker-kun... it might hurt." Tanker: "Don't worry F-16-chan. I'll be gentle." The tanker's boom slowly inserts into the F-16's. F-16: "Ittae!" Time to cursed everyone reading this
Why.
@@ToastedBreaad agreed jeez
Underrated
💀DEATH💀
One possible reason for Black and White is that it lets you triple the resolution. Obviously pointless if you can't adjust the contrast.
a possible fix for the lack of 3d, is to use a 3d system(similar to theaters) and two cameras mounted on the boom, as well as maybe a third one mounted to the nozzle, with a PIP(Picture In Picture) style system to allow the operators to see where the boom is, as well as see from the booms perspective. the hard part will be nighttime operation, unless the refueling plane can just point an IR light at the plane that is refueling.. of course it's easy for me to say this, as i have no clue what they have tried already, but that would be my simple trial solution if i was in charge of trying to fix this.
Sounds like expensive lessons learned but also, sounds like a lot of thought left a lot to be desired. Either way, even though it will be automated soon, this lessons learned can work on other possible needs in the future we just don't know about yet.
For the end of the video, automating probe and drogue is *relatively* simple (read: not necessarily easy): the tanker drone just has to know how to fly a racetrack, uncoil/coil the drogue, and let the receiver plug in (the human still does that part). Teaching a computer to do the opposite - actually fly the boom into the receiver - is a MUCH more complicated task, especially if you want to use the receiving aircraft after its been refueled. I suspect that the VRS (order?) intermediate step is needed as Boeing will: a. use the same hardware on the vrs and fully auto version, thus validating the equipment whilst a human is still in the loop, and b. Boeing is probably using the vrs system (with its trained human opperators) to pre-seed the machine learning system to shorten the learning process.
3 dimensional space, with dynamic lighting, changing atmospheric conditions and turbulence, including aircraft created turbulence. And as mentioned, differing aircraft and airspeeds,.. are a bit more complicated. They'll get there eventually.
@@My-Pal-Hal, hence the bolded "relatively" and the "read:", mate. Plus, if it was a dimensions problem, we'd have had autonomous cars by now and fully automated trains last century. ;)
@@j.michaelpriester8973 Oh ok. Guess that explains the 273 Tesla Autopilot crashes in just the last year. And that's not even in a 3D environment, with all the other things I mentioned. Not really the reliability one would expect of their military aircraft performance. Hey. Maybe that's why you can't just fly an aircraft with a driver's license. Could Be 😏
@@j.michaelpriester8973 Damn. I forgot to mention all those Train Accidents. And they're on a freakin track with only 2 Directions. How in the hell do you F Up That all the time,.. mate? 🤔 😳 🤤 But, I looked it up. I like knowing a bit of current information about what I'm talking about. Learn something new every day 😊👍 You may find it interesting. But it's US stats. So she me 😂 ... Railroad deaths totaled 893 in 2021, a 20% increase from the 2020 revised total of 744 and the highest since 2007. Nonfatal injuries totaled 5,781, a 4% increase from the 2020 revised total of 5,544. From 2020 to 2021, fatalities at highway-rail crossings increased 21%, while fatalities involving other types of incidents increased 20%. The latter included 617 deaths (94%) attributed to trespassers. Eleven employees were killed while on duty, equal to the 2020 death toll. There were six train passenger deaths, up from two deaths in 2020. The ratio of railroad-related deaths to nonfatal injuries and illnesses is about 1:6. In 2021, of the total 893 deaths, 26% occurred at rail-crossings. Of the 3,216 nonfatal occupational railroad injuries and illnesses reported in 2021, 66 were attributed to highway-rail crossing incidents. ... Bottom line. You picked some bad examples my friend 😏🖖
@@My-Pal-Hal, you actually just made my point about 10 times over. We've had 3-axis autopilots in aircraft for over 70 years, autopilots coupled to navigation for over 30, and Cat III autoland for over 25. We've pretty well licked controlling an aircraft in 3 dimensions. The engineers on the MQ-25 project readily admit the problem is not in the flight control logic (3D), but in the on-deck control logic (2D). Your Tesla example again clearly demonstrates the much more highly dynamic environment in which cars operate. Hence, why Tesla's autopilot is still unreliable. Your train accident statistics, while interesting and slightly informative, ultimately have nothing to do with autonomous trains. They aren't a thing, except in VERY controlled environments. All of the accidents you cited involve human-controlled commercial trains. US commercial airlines, which are under autopilot control at least by the time they reach 10k feet of altitude, has not had a fatal accident since Colgan Air in 2009, and that involved pilot error, not the automation. So, while it may seem that increasing the dimensions increases complexity, the complexity of the control logic is more determined by the dynamicism of the environment in which the vehicle is operating, not the raw number of dimensions. On the road, the control logic must contend with other cars, pedestrians, construction, weather, parked aircraft, etc. In aviation, weather and its effects have long ago been built into the control logic, and especially in the MQ-25's case, there aren't other aircraft or construction barriers which are going to get in its way. If an F-18 were to stray in front of it, that's what the military version of TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) is for. The history of the technology and the accident examples we both cited further demonstrated that it's not the number of dimensions in which one operates, but the dynamicism within the dimensions one operates.
Also you can't have good 3 dimensional visual cues while refueling.
Drones are great and should definitely be researched and developed further but that should augment and work alongside human control equipment. You can jam and possibly hack the link between the ground and the aircraft it's a lot harder to mess with the link between a human pilot and the aircraft when the pilot is in side the aircraft.
The 46 is refueling 35s and 22s now. I don't mind taking gas from it at all. It seems like they can get to contact pretty quickly, the director lights are super bright, and the boom is so strong you can almost fly hands off once you're connected. They still probably should've used a viewing window, but I think the RVS may be used for UAV refueling someday using computer vision techniques.
I know it’s been 7 months but what do you fly, I’m curious?
Proper automation would be great for refueling - They could use near field communication (NFC) between a transponder on the fuel port and a receiver on the tip of the boom arm to determine alignment and distance measurement (Similar to whats used to dock spacecraft with the ISS) which could either be fully automatic or used to provide a 3D guide for the boom arm operator - To deal with it accidentally touching the stealth coating they'd also just need a sensor (probably Hall Effect based) that could pick up the small magnetic response from the airframe of the jet and have it force a minimum safe distance if the pervious alignment sensors weren't fully aligned for the actual docking of boom and aircraft.
I'm 99.98% sure no spacecraft that currently docks to the ISS uses NFC for the docking process
@@richardmillhousenixon After more research you're right sorry, crafts like the SpaceX Dragon use a radio transponder for far distance estimation and LIDAR for distance and alignment when on final for docking
Most ironic thing about all of this is that, Airbus with mrtt lost to Boeing in next gen fuel tanker. Especially when you account for fact that as they say it's only bridge solution before drone refueling, In that case USA going after unproven plane that is worse by any means of measurments shows pure essence of this country ability to waste money. They literally choose airbus, boeing got angry and pulled strings in gov, only for them to cancel bid, and make new one that would be put together in a way that favours boeing. Now you have consequences of it.
Exactly. Thats why there were so many corruption allegations, and why people were arrested. They did the same thing to SpaceX, and there were a shit ton of corruption allegations against Boeing, for being biased and preferring Boeings starliner over SpaceX's Dragon, purely because "Boeing is a legacy contractor and we see them as a conservative and safe solution"
Boeing submitted and won a protest based on acquisition law. No strings were pulled.
And Boeing is the one paying out of pocket to fix the mess they created. I'd say that's pretty fair karma so far, but what would be better is if the USAF pulled some of their own strings and contrived a reason to pull the contract out from under them completely
The question i'm asking myself is "why put the cameras on the fueling plane, instead of at the end of the boom (not extended) ?" One on each winglet and one in the extension axis. That way you have a tri-point viewing camera return at close proximity to the connector you're aiming. It would still need training skills of course, but being closer reduces parallax and chances of over-exposition since the viewing range is focused on the target. 13:15 - Huge tankers like that are useful for big planes or multiple-plane refueling, when fueling drones are (currently) limited by they size, consequently fueling capability. Wich means one tanker is needed instead of an entire fleet of drones. To me, the answer is easy.