Rush
Giga Poster
Everything that is posted in this thread is non-confidential, so basically I'm not showing you anything I shouldn't be. Oh yeah, and it's a pretty hefty report. It might take you a while to read. :lol:
Last year I posted a thread concerning gliding which I did as part of the Air Cadets. It contains a bit of background stuff about what the Air Cadets is about etc: http://www.coasterforce.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26290
(This is actually relevant, I'm not trying to be like Ollie.)
Back in October last year, I went away to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire for a week with 29 other cadets. (None of whom I really knew.) During that week I got an invitation from the boss to go flying in one of the aircraft based at the station, the E-3D Sentry. (An offer I was quick to accept.)
On Wednesday 28th October, I woke up at half 5 and I, along with two other cadets were taken to an area in the station to receive a health and safety brief as well as a "mission" briefing. Afterwards we were taken on a mini-bus to the Sentry parking lot.
You're probably thinking, what the hell is a Sentry? It would be rude to not introduce you to it.
The Sentry is an Airbourne Early Warning Aircraft (AEW) which means it's basically used by the RAF for reconnaissance, mainly in Afghanistan. I wasn't however going to be travelling to Afghanistan that day but the Sentry would be doing a surveillance around Britain.
The design is based on the Boeing 707 which has been converted for RAF-usage. The seats found in the aircraft are not ones found on commercial flights. The cargo area has been converted into an electronics bay to operate the aircraft and whatever it contains. The spike on the front is actually a rod which allows the plane to be air to air refueled.
The most prominant feature of the Sentry is probably the "smartie" mounted on the fuselage. This is the radar, the key piece of equipment. In flight, it does 1 revolution approximately every 12 seconds.
Back to the day's events. I was introduced to the captain who gave us an offer to sit in a spare seat on the main flight deck. (Sadly I don't have any photos of this, these aren't my pictures.) I sat in a seat behind the pilot and we taxied to the end of the main runway. It was very interesting seeing a take-off from the pilots' point of view, I made a mental note to myself of some of the procedures as I hope to be a commercial pilot one day.
The pilot set the throttles to full power and the aircraft began to roll down the runway, only to slow down moments later. The pilot exclaimed "bloody birds" which led me to believe that we had experienced a birdstrike. As a result we were forced to abort take-off and return to the parking bays.
To our annoyance we were told the flight was to be delayed for at least two hours. So we were given a lunch pack which included a lovely can of Doctor Pepper, except mine, unfortunately I got some not-so-glamorous orange juice.
90 minutes later we returned to the aircraft and noticed that the ground crew were inspecting the number four engine, the one where the birds were supposedly ingested through.
During that time another Sentry had landed and had begun with some engine maintenance.
Seeing as I'd already had a chance to sit in the flight deck seat I gave the opportunity to another cadet. The aircraft did its start up checks again and then finally was able to take off successfully. 10 minutes after take-off we were allowed to leave our seats so I had a wander around the aircraft.
Here is a shot to show you what it was like on the inside. Being a reconnaissance aircraft, windows aren't needed. So it's not an extremely comfortable flight. It's essentially an flying office. There are however small windows to peer out of although the black grid across them was an annoyance, especially for photos.
Wings.
Due to the earlier "birdstrike", the flight was cut from 7 hours to 5, but it still went by pretty slowly. I asked the crew about the work they were doing but unfortunately, the responses would have breached top-secret protocol. I guess I'm a bit of a nosy git.
Right, now gets to the proper interesting, wowee part. So if you've scanned through the first part, this is the part to read about.
About 2 hours into the flight we were called up to take a look out of the right hand windows. I looked out, expecting a view of the coast or some pretty clouds or something. I was VERY surprised when instead I saw this:
That is a Lockheed TriStar you see there and it is pretty close. We were then told by the flight engineer that as an added bonus to our flight, we were going to be air to air refueled! As a big aviation fan this was really something and it was one of the most surreal things I've experienced.
I return to the same window about 3 minutes later and see that the TriStar has flown even closer.
The TriStar is a Tanker aircraft in the RAF, meaning it is one used for air to air refueling. It is also used as a cargo transport but that role has been taken on by much larger aircraft such as the C-17 Galaxy. You can see the long chord trailing from the rear of the plane, this contains a basket on the end which the refuelling rod on the Sentry has to fly into. It's a pretty tricky task.
We were then invited back up to the flight deck to see the refuelling from there. Here is a picture of the flight engineer's station, lots of buttons and indicators there.
The following photos may be unsuitable for Taylor or anyone else with a fear of flying. :lol:
In order for our plane to be refuelled, the TriStar had to fly above and slightly in front of us. The next picture really shows how close the two planes had to get to each other. Notice how the bottom of the TriStar fills the entire view. Also look at the top left corner and you can see the horizontal stabiliser which just shows that we are no more than 100ft below it.
That really was a wow moment.
Next was the tricky part. The TriStar leaves the basket trailing behind and it's up to the Sentry to fly into the basket. It requires huge amounts of concentration and patience, flying a 150 ton aircraft is difficult enough in the first place. It was a bit like a penalty shoot-out. It came very close numerous times with everyone groaning every time it missed. I think it took 8 attempts before finally it was in the right place and could start the refuelling.
Whilst the refuelling was taking place, the ride became very bumpy. However it was more like a boat's movements instead of turbulence which made me feel a bit queezy.
One more shot of the underbelly of the TriStar.
After the Sentry had received its load (giggity) the Tri Star was able to move off and fly back to its RAF base at Brize Norton. As it was flying off, it was joined by another Tanker aircraft, the VC10. This is a smaller aircraft but does the same job as the TriStar. I'm not entirely sure why it was there, but I guess it looked cool too.
That's the last of the photos which is just as well as the rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. I had a short snooze and before long it was time to land. Similarly to the take-off we were allowed to sit in the extra seat in the flight deck. It had turned dark by then so photos would have been rubbish anyway.
The flight ended slightly earlier than expected so the pilot decided to let his co-pilot conduct a few "touch and go"s. This is when a plane lands but instead of braking, it takes off again and flies another circuit. For the last two touch and gos, I was sat in the main fuselage area. As seen earlier, there aren't any windows in this area. So it came as a bit of a shock when we touched down.
We landed around 5:30, having spent just under 5 hours in the air. I have to say I feel very priviledged to have been invited aboard, and being air to air refuelled is one thing I can safely say most people will never be able to do.
If you read all of that, then I applaud you. If you have any questions, be sure to ask. Hopefully you enjoyed my report and learned some random facts on this plane which almost nobody has ever heard of.
I hope to report back on any future flights I have.
Thanks for reading.
EDIT: One last thing. Here is a video showing how NOT to air to air refuel.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGS8dwQSWzI[/youtube]
Last year I posted a thread concerning gliding which I did as part of the Air Cadets. It contains a bit of background stuff about what the Air Cadets is about etc: http://www.coasterforce.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26290
(This is actually relevant, I'm not trying to be like Ollie.)
Back in October last year, I went away to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire for a week with 29 other cadets. (None of whom I really knew.) During that week I got an invitation from the boss to go flying in one of the aircraft based at the station, the E-3D Sentry. (An offer I was quick to accept.)
On Wednesday 28th October, I woke up at half 5 and I, along with two other cadets were taken to an area in the station to receive a health and safety brief as well as a "mission" briefing. Afterwards we were taken on a mini-bus to the Sentry parking lot.
You're probably thinking, what the hell is a Sentry? It would be rude to not introduce you to it.
The Sentry is an Airbourne Early Warning Aircraft (AEW) which means it's basically used by the RAF for reconnaissance, mainly in Afghanistan. I wasn't however going to be travelling to Afghanistan that day but the Sentry would be doing a surveillance around Britain.
The design is based on the Boeing 707 which has been converted for RAF-usage. The seats found in the aircraft are not ones found on commercial flights. The cargo area has been converted into an electronics bay to operate the aircraft and whatever it contains. The spike on the front is actually a rod which allows the plane to be air to air refueled.
The most prominant feature of the Sentry is probably the "smartie" mounted on the fuselage. This is the radar, the key piece of equipment. In flight, it does 1 revolution approximately every 12 seconds.
Back to the day's events. I was introduced to the captain who gave us an offer to sit in a spare seat on the main flight deck. (Sadly I don't have any photos of this, these aren't my pictures.) I sat in a seat behind the pilot and we taxied to the end of the main runway. It was very interesting seeing a take-off from the pilots' point of view, I made a mental note to myself of some of the procedures as I hope to be a commercial pilot one day.
The pilot set the throttles to full power and the aircraft began to roll down the runway, only to slow down moments later. The pilot exclaimed "bloody birds" which led me to believe that we had experienced a birdstrike. As a result we were forced to abort take-off and return to the parking bays.
To our annoyance we were told the flight was to be delayed for at least two hours. So we were given a lunch pack which included a lovely can of Doctor Pepper, except mine, unfortunately I got some not-so-glamorous orange juice.
90 minutes later we returned to the aircraft and noticed that the ground crew were inspecting the number four engine, the one where the birds were supposedly ingested through.
During that time another Sentry had landed and had begun with some engine maintenance.
Seeing as I'd already had a chance to sit in the flight deck seat I gave the opportunity to another cadet. The aircraft did its start up checks again and then finally was able to take off successfully. 10 minutes after take-off we were allowed to leave our seats so I had a wander around the aircraft.
Here is a shot to show you what it was like on the inside. Being a reconnaissance aircraft, windows aren't needed. So it's not an extremely comfortable flight. It's essentially an flying office. There are however small windows to peer out of although the black grid across them was an annoyance, especially for photos.
Wings.
Due to the earlier "birdstrike", the flight was cut from 7 hours to 5, but it still went by pretty slowly. I asked the crew about the work they were doing but unfortunately, the responses would have breached top-secret protocol. I guess I'm a bit of a nosy git.
Right, now gets to the proper interesting, wowee part. So if you've scanned through the first part, this is the part to read about.
About 2 hours into the flight we were called up to take a look out of the right hand windows. I looked out, expecting a view of the coast or some pretty clouds or something. I was VERY surprised when instead I saw this:
That is a Lockheed TriStar you see there and it is pretty close. We were then told by the flight engineer that as an added bonus to our flight, we were going to be air to air refueled! As a big aviation fan this was really something and it was one of the most surreal things I've experienced.
I return to the same window about 3 minutes later and see that the TriStar has flown even closer.
The TriStar is a Tanker aircraft in the RAF, meaning it is one used for air to air refueling. It is also used as a cargo transport but that role has been taken on by much larger aircraft such as the C-17 Galaxy. You can see the long chord trailing from the rear of the plane, this contains a basket on the end which the refuelling rod on the Sentry has to fly into. It's a pretty tricky task.
We were then invited back up to the flight deck to see the refuelling from there. Here is a picture of the flight engineer's station, lots of buttons and indicators there.
The following photos may be unsuitable for Taylor or anyone else with a fear of flying. :lol:
In order for our plane to be refuelled, the TriStar had to fly above and slightly in front of us. The next picture really shows how close the two planes had to get to each other. Notice how the bottom of the TriStar fills the entire view. Also look at the top left corner and you can see the horizontal stabiliser which just shows that we are no more than 100ft below it.
That really was a wow moment.
Next was the tricky part. The TriStar leaves the basket trailing behind and it's up to the Sentry to fly into the basket. It requires huge amounts of concentration and patience, flying a 150 ton aircraft is difficult enough in the first place. It was a bit like a penalty shoot-out. It came very close numerous times with everyone groaning every time it missed. I think it took 8 attempts before finally it was in the right place and could start the refuelling.
Whilst the refuelling was taking place, the ride became very bumpy. However it was more like a boat's movements instead of turbulence which made me feel a bit queezy.
One more shot of the underbelly of the TriStar.
After the Sentry had received its load (giggity) the Tri Star was able to move off and fly back to its RAF base at Brize Norton. As it was flying off, it was joined by another Tanker aircraft, the VC10. This is a smaller aircraft but does the same job as the TriStar. I'm not entirely sure why it was there, but I guess it looked cool too.
That's the last of the photos which is just as well as the rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. I had a short snooze and before long it was time to land. Similarly to the take-off we were allowed to sit in the extra seat in the flight deck. It had turned dark by then so photos would have been rubbish anyway.
The flight ended slightly earlier than expected so the pilot decided to let his co-pilot conduct a few "touch and go"s. This is when a plane lands but instead of braking, it takes off again and flies another circuit. For the last two touch and gos, I was sat in the main fuselage area. As seen earlier, there aren't any windows in this area. So it came as a bit of a shock when we touched down.
We landed around 5:30, having spent just under 5 hours in the air. I have to say I feel very priviledged to have been invited aboard, and being air to air refuelled is one thing I can safely say most people will never be able to do.
If you read all of that, then I applaud you. If you have any questions, be sure to ask. Hopefully you enjoyed my report and learned some random facts on this plane which almost nobody has ever heard of.
I hope to report back on any future flights I have.
Thanks for reading.
EDIT: One last thing. Here is a video showing how NOT to air to air refuel.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGS8dwQSWzI[/youtube]
