Who came up with the idea of Air to Air refuelling first. And has it ever been used on Commercial Aircraft?

Answer 1

Probably the earliest and safest airborne refueling would be some F9C Sparrowhawk's around !933 -34. They were able to stay aloft for days and take fuel without effort.

How ever your question is the earliest AAR: Wikipedia says, Some of the earliest experiments in aerial refueling took place in the 1920s, when it was as simple as two slow-flying aircraft flying in formation, with a hose run down from a hand-held fuel tank on one aircraft and placed into the usual fuel filler of the other.

A DH-4B biplane remained aloft with mid-air refueling for 37 hours on June 27, 1923.

Development was rapid. In 1929, a group of U. S. Army Air Corps fliers, led by then Major Carl Spaatz, set an endurance record of over 150 hours with the Question Mark over Los Angeles.

In 1930, the Hunter brothers set a new record of 553 hours 40 minutes over Chicago. Aerial refuelling remained a very dangerous process until 1935 when brothers Fred and Al Key demonstrated the first spill-free refueling nozzle, designed by A. D. Hunter. They exceeded the Hunters' record by nearly 100 hours in a Curtiss Robin monoplane, staying aloft for more than 27 days

Answer 2

Caretaker has given a good insight into the history, though the Sparrowhaws didnt fly indefinitely, they were hooked back into their motherships, refuelled and let out again (The mothership flew during the hook-catch-relaunch timeframe, not the F9Cs).

I have to disagree with idak as it is not entirely "illegal" to refuel the aircraft with passengers onboard, atleast not in India.

As for why it is not used in commercial aircrafts, I guess the answer is commercial viability and safety issues. It would be cheaper to land the airplane and refuel rather than having a tanker burn fuel to feed it in air. The standard assumption that "half the fuel is spent to get the other half there" should apply here also.

Answer 3

Sir Alan Cobham, a british engineer, pilot and adventurer pioneered the hose and drogue method of air to air refuelling in the 1920s. His company Flight Refuelling Ltd still provide AAR equipment to the military worldwide as part of the Cobham Group of companies.

Civilian airlines would find the AAR process too dangerous. Anyway these days limtation to aircraft endurance often are reached in hours limitations for the pilots. The latest A340-500 can cruise for 16 hours but keeping the crews legally rested for that period is difficult.

Answer 4

Caretaker gave you a pretty good history of air to air refuelling. I commend him on it. The military uses it quite often and ever since the second ww. However for commercial flights no. It is entirely illegal to refuel aircraft with passengers on board. To much hazard that is why commercial aircraft are refueled upon landing and passengers are required to leave the plane at that time.

Answer 5

The benefit of supersonic flight is not worth the cost. Few people would pay even $2500 to save a couple of hours on a flight, let alone the $10K that the Concorde charged per seat. If you have the money and need to save the time, you'd charter a subsonic private jet and save the time you would spend at the airport waiting to go through security, waiting to board, etc. Due to the laws of physics, it's not feasible to make it much more economical. In subsonic flight, drag increases as the square of speed- it takes 4 times the energy to move twice as fast. It takes far more energy than that to go supersonic: At subsonic speeds, you are moving a lot of air, transferring kinetic energy to it. At supersonic speeds, you not only move the air, but also compress and heat it. That takes a lot more energy. Unless there is a radical breakthrough in physics that can be applied to aircraft propulsion, there is no getting around the cost of the energy required. There is another part of the economics that you ignore: airliners do not just carry people, they also carry freight. On every normal passenger flight, much of the profit from a flight comes from cargo being carried. An SST is never going to have much cargo capacity - the Concorde only carried 100 people and NO freight. Oh yeah, one last thing: The UK, France, Canada, and the US DID have an issue with sonic booms - the only place where super sonic flight was allowed was over open water. Going NY to Paris, the Concorde was only supersonic for about half of the time.

Answer 6

In flight refuelling is a British invention trialed towards the end of ww2 and developed by Flight refuelling using the hose and drogue method, the US uses a boom method.

Not practical in commercial use as it cost many arms and legs to fly a tanker with fuel, it is also very dangerous operation due to the close proximity of the Host and receiving aircraft.

Answer 7

In air refuelling requires two aircraft to fly in close formation, maybe 20 metres apart. Civil aviation rules require a minimum separation of several miles between aircraft on the same flight path.

Answer 8

It was first done by the US Army way back, shortly after World War One.

It's not practical for commercial aviation, you need a second plane to fly up there to refuel, cheaper to land and refuel.

A lot of the early use of in flight refueling was with heavy bombers. The planes could not carry full bomb loads and full fuel loads and still take off, so they would load up the bombs, and only partial fuel. Take off, meet the tanker and top up the tanks. Also for really long distance flights or long loiter missions they would meet a tanker to stay airborne, saves some time, but like I said, really expensive.

Answer 9

USA needed to keep B47's aloft continuously during the 50's and so they designed an airborne tanker to refuel them. The B47s were flown nonstop to prevent an enemy from being able to destroy them on the ground. This was called NORAD (North American Air Defense). Later it was decided that counterstrike missles were better (Mutally assured destruction - MAD) because they could be hidden underground in concrete silos and the B47 project was abandoned but the refueling tankers stayed to refuel fighters .
Don't know about commercial use.

Answer 10

One candidate must be the British aviator, Sir Alan Cobham.
He found a company in 1934 to investigate the future of flight refuelling. Both the present methods, were developed by him. See the website.