A question concerning aerial refuelling.

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As I said I think the Boom method is something to do with fuel flow rates. Fuel is meant to flow more quickly, making it suitable for larger aircraft. The drogue method however, means that up to three aircraft can be refueled at once, depending on their size, however, there are severe restrictions on aircraft size that can be refueled by this method. A B-1, B-25 or E-4 AWACS would just gobble up fuel just as fast if not faster than the drogue method could give it to the aircraft.
 

You're right about the boom with its larger flow rate. If a drouge had to be used it's just means more refueling time. During the refueling operation you want to get in and get out ASAP.
 
I hope this has solved the mystery for you. It isn't so much that the two systems are totally different in all ways but just that the fuel demands for one force are different from another, as are the aircraft available as tankers. I would not like to try to land a 707 tanker on a carrier, it would be as impossible as landing a B-25 Mitchell on a carrier was during WW2. There was a large aircraft with a lack of useable landing space, available.
 
Not exactly. There were 2 reasons. 1 it was determined that landing on a carrier was very difficult and 2 it would have forced the Navy to loiter in unfriendly waters waiting for their return. That would also have forced them to use radios to tell them whether they were returning or not and give away their position.

The Navy was nervous enough about getting that close to the Japanese mainland. Hagning around waitinng would have been suicide.
 
I know it would have been difficult however I always thought the main reason was the carrier was not going to get close to the Japanese mainland and therefore there would not have been eneogh fuel especially in the stripped down Mitchels.
 
The plan called to take off between 400 and 600 miles from the Japanese coast. The closer the better. From Tokyo, China is another 1200 miles, Vladivostok, 600. If carrier landings could be more easily executed and the Navy was not nervous about loitering in bad-guy land, it may have been better that way.
 
and there was barely enough room to take all of the B-25s off, trying to lad all of them on that flight deck would be rather akward, even with arrester hooks......
 
Good point Lanc. It would have been real tight for landing. Plus with the -25s on the deck, if the carrier was attacked, they would either have to take off again so the fighters could come up or the carrier would be a sitting duck.
 
You don't have to keep the B-25s when they land, just push them off the side. The USN did it enough during World War 2, Korea and Vietnam.
 
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