Airbus Demonstrate Automatic AAR

[ORAC]

https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/pres...-contacts.html

Airbus achieves world’s first fully automatic refuelling contacts

[esscee]

That may get good ole Boeing even more annoyed as they still have their "troubles" with the 767 tanker.

[safetypee]

I suppose the next move is to demonstrate fully autonomous tanking, but that might depend on the USN participating with an MQ-25 !

[ORAC]

Umm. No. Fully automatic requires no action apart from station keeping on the part of the receiver - which means a boom.

The MQ-25 just has a basket and still requires basket jousting on the part of the receiver pilot.

[Nige321]

Originally Posted by ORAC

Umm. No. Fully automatic requires no action apart from station keeping on the part of the receiver - which means a boom.

The MQ-25 just has a basket and still requires basket jousting on the part of the receiver pilot.

Around 7 years ago I was doing the university open days with my son looking at aero engineering.
At one, and I think it was Bristol, we saw a rig set up to research just that, using AI and computer vision to get a probe in a basket autonomously...
I've got a feeling the basket had something on it to 'fly' it...

[ORAC]

Nige321,

I posted the following link a few months back on work on automated hose stabilisation. Still in early trials, requires the same sort of camera systems as for the boom - but would need integrating into every pod - and has flying strokes for aerodynamic control on the basket.

As I recall someone commented the first I posted, good luck with that with the amount of beating and damage baskets end up getting from the probe.....

Regardless, still a long way from successful trials.

https://www.robins.af.mil/News/Artic...fueling-monit/

[ORAC]

https://www.defensenews.com/smr/sing...sts-with-f-15/

Airbus completes midair automatic refueling trials with Singapore’s F-16, preps for tests with F-15