Aerial Refueling

[Paolo Tagliaferri]

Hi all
There (http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/refueling/Tech22.htm) is a link about the evolution of this "technique". Does anyone knows about operations in WWII that involved refueling?

[Romantic Technofreak]

As much as I know, the technique was never used for operations. I always thought in Germany there haven´t even been trials, but when I bought a book abot the DFS I learned this was not so. In this book there is a picture showing a Ju 290 refuelling a Ju 390.
This technique of course could have been used for German transatlantic flights, but they never happened. I believe the often quoted flight of two Ju 390´s until near New York is a fairy tale. It is even not absolutely sure that a second Ju 390 was ever built. Also, nobody knows the crews that should have managed such a "famous" flight.
It also would have been a nice thought to use the thick Blohm + Voss BV 222 as a tanker, while the BV 222 is refueled itself by an U-boat. But this showed to be impossible in the very uncalm northern Atlantic, where all German seaplanes had big trouble to lift from the water. So, at least for a certain time the Breguet 521 Bizerte (ex Short Calcutta) was the only "German" seaplane that could pick up shipwrecked sailors or emergency-landed pilots out of the Atlantic waters.

[robert]

There is an excellent book, Seventy-Five Years of Inflight Refueling: Highlights, 1923-1998, by Richard K. Smith, that is out of print, but which you can download free as a PDF from the US Air Force Historical Branch web site.

The entire text of the 86 page book is included, but unfortunately, not the pictures. But the chapter "Wartime Might-Have-Beens" has lots of interesting information about plans that never materialized.

Download the book at:

http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/Annotations/smithsevety.htm

[PMN1]

I’ve found a book ‘The British Aircraft Specifications File’ published by Air-Britain, which lists British aircraft specifications and what designs were proposed and accepted from 1914 on.

There are a number of specifications prior to 1941 which mention air to air refuelling, the B.1/35 Specification for a heavy bomber issued 08/05/35 that resulted in the Warwick lists the requirement for a capability for in-flight refuelling and the R.14/40 Specification for a maritime patrol aircraft issued 11/40 that resulted in the Short Shetland states that refuelling in the air will not be required.

It would seem that the technology was considered well enough advanced before the war, which makes it, strange that air to air refuelling was not looked at for closing the Atlantic gap and for the patrol aircraft it was written down that it was not needed.

BOAC had tested AAR before the war for their flying boats when they were competing with Pan Am for the first direct crossing of the Atlantic and no problems were reported but war intervened.