Guest Post: KC-17 Many-Mission Tanker Idea
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 3:03AM Mike Nelson writes:
As a Californian watching my state burn for the 6th year in a row I got motivated to document an idea of mine. I brought this to Tom's attention and he was kind enough to offer to post it here so that it might get some visibility among those in a position to consider and act on it.
Specifically I propose that the Air Force rework their refueling tanker contract to include the mission of Fire Tanker, and see the C-17 airframe as an ideal candidate. In addition I assert that this platform would provide better utility for our emerging SysAdmin mission requirements as well as the foundation for supporting international disaster relief. I figure if we're going to spend $35B+ on this program, why not get a platform that also meets additional important needs? The attached PDF provides a summary of this idea.
My thanks to Tom for the assist in circulating this.
Tanker Idea Summary (pdf)
Update 7/28: Mike sent in an updated pdf with an added introduction for greater clarity: Tanker Idea Summary v2 (pdf)
Reader Comments (15)
The C-17 has an empty weight of 282,500 lbs, and a max take-off weight of 585,000 lbs. The max payload is 170,900 pounds and the average fuel load (for flying the airplane, not mid-air refueling ops) is between 170,000 pounds and 240,000 pounds. The math that Mr. Nelson uses doesn't appear to match up to the Air Force's stats.
As far as the "KC-17" idea, the design of the C-17 would have to be completely reengineered for it to be a refueling tanker, and the addition of a refueling boom at the rear of the aircraft would probably negate the ability to load and offload cargo via the rear cargo ramp. The loss of the rear cargo ramp would take away the ability to carry pallets, rolling stock, and outsized cargo. Also, if they were converted to be used as a refueling tanker, they probably wouldn't be used for fire-fighting because you wouldn't load water into tanks that typically carry jet fuel! There's a reason why you don't see refuelers like KC-10s and KC-135s being used to fight fires.
Using the C-17 to fight fires is a good idea, and I'm sure it wouldn't take too much to come up with a larger version of the firefighting system that is loaded onto the much smaller C-130s. The current inventory of C-17s are in high demand for strategic airlift around the world though, so it would be tough to task them to firefighting duty at this time.
I appologize if my ideas are a little jumbled, but I think this is truly an amateurish idea, and far below the level of thought usually presented in this blog.
Adding a tanker "kit" would obviously increase the baseline, but I would argue this would be well offset by the superior flexibility. How much did the San Diego wildfires cost us 2 years ago? How much is Yellowstone or Yosemite worth? What's the marketing good will value of international disaster relief? Hard to peg with exact dollars I admit but quite valuable for sure.
Of course, by the time these things are built, these concerns could be worked out.
One question I have is, how common are forest fires outside of the US? I never see news coverage about forest fires unless it's the Western US. I'm just wondering how much of this disaster relief would end up being "international". It could be one bad-ass crop duster though! ;)
One thing to consider is how the decision wll be made regarding where the tanker is used. Having gone through Katrina I heard all of the arguments that the National Guard shhould not have been in Iraq but rather at home performing hurricane duty. I can imagine similar arguments if the tankers are in the Arabian Gulf and fires are buring in San Diego.
But I admit, I do like this kind of thinking!
i'm not talking about thousand year measures (to obviate New Orleans or 2008 Eastern Iowa floods, but what about better 100 year and 10 year countermeasures?
Robert, armies may crawl on their stomach, but air forces fly with their tanker fleet. Tanker missions don't take a break during the fire season, so leasing from state governments seems it would do little good. Also, I assume the craft would have to be manned by US Air Force crews and meet all military specs and paint schemes.
Sean, your point is very Bjorn Lomborg-esque! Sure, let people build them, but don't give them federal relief when they fall into the ocean, get knocked by hurricanes or flood. We basically have government subsidized high-risk behavior. Because we bail these home owners out, there is very little risk so they keep doing it.
However, this will only take care of property damage and slight chance of loss of life. Being from the Midwest, I'm also semi-ignorant on this but I'd assume that losing hundreds of acres of forest and wildlife is also a problem which means the fires still need to be fought.
With respect to configuration for this mission, US wildfires have a very predictable season, so a reserve fleet could easily be coordinated to address anticipated demand. This way the only time you would encounter re-configuration issues would be when needing to surge additional airframes for an extraordinary event. And, I would argue that this this fleet would then be an ideal resource for keeping air guard crews proficient in high intensity missions vs. their typcial air truck role, so this would serve a militarily relavent training role too.
I also suspect support for refueling AND fire mode may be quite easy to actually design into a common configuration to. All it really needs is a monster dump valve in addition to. the air-to-air boom and trailing probe plumbing. You would most definitely need to flush the tanks between these missions though : )
With regard to State ownership of this requirement I just don't see them ever being able to assemble a platform in the critical mass that the Air Force can. Especially as this is just a seasonal mission.
To the building code comments I agree this is a good thing to promote but a lot more burns than just the housing type infrastructure. Your talking about power line right of ways that get destroyed, our national forrest and parkland resources, wildlife and their habitat destroyed, mudslide implications in burner out regions the next time it rains, etc., etc., etc.
Mike: how much does housing and development add kindling and fire paths to nature?
The blog, by definition, is for experiments and floating ideas. So please, no sancitity-of-this-site condemnations. I find most true innovation to be completely "amateurish"--and thank God for those willing to engage in it.
The idea to use the C-17 as a fire fighting platform is actually an outstanding idea if we have extra capacity that isn't being used up as strat-airlifters around the world.
I just don't think that the idea of a "KC-17" is feasible based on the way that the aircraft is designed, and it's especially not feasible to use a refueling tanker as a firefighting tanker. There are KC-130s out there, but they use a probe and drogue system that is mounted on the wings, and I don't think the C-17 has the capability to carry external fuel tanks on the wings.
I also read that they tried to shop the C-17 design around on the civilian side, but there wasn't much interest because the configuration they were selling it in is not as fuel efficient as the cargo hauling 767s, 777s, etc. Not sure on the accuracy of that, but take it for what it's worth.
Well, who said that a refueling boom is mandatory on C-17 tankers? True, they won't be able to refuel B-2/52s, A-10s and F-15/16/22s, but they'll be plenty ofF-18s/35s for many years to come. And if a similar IL-78 Supertanker can be used for firefighting, I don't see an unsurmountable problem with C-17 tanker, should they ever materialize.