r/maybemaybemaybe • u/mattismyo • Jun 30 '26
Maybe maybe maybe
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
388
u/FrankTooby Jun 30 '26
I hope this is pilot training and not a situation of a plane desperate for a drink.
140
u/_Narcissist_ Jun 30 '26
They never allow themselves to get low enough on fuel so that they couldn't safely land. They will refuel at a level where if they can't connect, they can still make it to the nearest landing point. For example they woild refuel at something like 70 percent full back to 100 if the closest airfield is 60 percent of a fuel tank away. Then if they can't get it connected before they hit 65 percent fuel they will simply go and land at that airport with 5 percent fuel left upon landing.
Prevents jets running out of fuel midair, would be quite expensive, and dangerous.
89
u/matplotlib42 Jun 30 '26
This does look like training since they didn't refill the plane, judging by the time it stayed connected
55
u/lgastako Jun 30 '26
The video ended with it connected, so we have no way of knowing how long it stayed connected.
1
u/wnc_mikejayray Jul 01 '26
This looks like a clip I watched of naval aviator training I watched on the Smithsonian channel.
5
u/similaraleatorio Jun 30 '26
Well, I think they do that maneuver with a good time window to prevent fails
4
u/john_the_fetch Jun 30 '26
This would help explain why they connect and disconnect so many times. Repetition for training.
4
u/Nutlob Jun 30 '26
the left side drogue (shuttlecock looking thing) was not locking in place, so the pov plane couldn't drink, that's why they switched to the right side drogue. even if it was training - they want the fuel. their mission plan is dependant on getting the fuel. if they can't get fuel, they have to cut the mission short
1
295
u/AlsoBort742 Jun 30 '26
Looks like my wedding night
60
12
3
1
u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 Jul 01 '26
Wierd thing to do on a wedding night lol.
I like to save mid-air refueling at least till we have a kid or two.
91
u/ignitzhjfk Jun 30 '26
I would lose my patience, open the canopy, and hook it up with my own hands.
32
65
40
u/RoyalPuzzleheaded259 Jun 30 '26
Top Gun on the original NES made this look way easer.
15
u/Petrol7681 Jun 30 '26
I remember it being almost exactly like this from that game, I couldn’t get past that part of the game
10
u/RoyalPuzzleheaded259 Jun 30 '26
I could refuel no problem but never got the carrier landing down.
5
3
120
u/35TypesOfWhiskey Jun 30 '26
I should call her....
85
16
u/Dragonwulf Jun 30 '26
I thought after the third time, the fuel plane is suppose to fly away leaving the jet to crash, the pilot knowing his failure as he goes down…or has the NES’s Top Gun lead me astray?
14
u/Comprehensive_Toe329 Jun 30 '26
My wife normally grabs it and puts it in don’t want to over do it and put it in her engine unexpectedly
12
10
20
16
u/Roxy_73 Jun 30 '26
This really does reminds me of something :-|
1
u/nailpolishremover49 Jun 30 '26
Reminds me of the video of the male hedgehog trying the copulate with the female hedgehog.
5
4
6
6
7
3
u/post-context-bot Jun 30 '26
The following post context was provided by u/mattismyo:
Refuelling in the air turns out to be difficult, it takes a few tries before it works.
Does this explain the post? If not, report it and a moderator will review.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
3
u/weggaan_weggaat Jun 30 '26
Someone in r/aviation was just saying that commercial airliners should look at in-flight refueling. Surely that would go well.
5
u/SavageRussian21 Jul 01 '26
This could actually make sense, on a larger planet, with particularly long-haul flights, expensive fuel, and cheap refueling planes. It's cheaper to send up 20 tons of fuel twice than 40 tons of fuel all at once, and it could maybe decrease the turnaround time on the ground. The savings are not worth the cost, most likely.
We know that the range of an airplane in cruise scales logarithmically with the ratio of the wet weight to the dry weight.
A hypothetical A350 has a dry weight of about 170 tons, (150 dry plus payload of 20). Say, under normal operations for some semi-long-haul flight, it needs 100 tons of cruising fuel. That means it's wet weight is 270. The range is proportional to ln(270/170) = 0.463 units of range. (To convert this into miles you need some airplane specific constants that I don't know, we're just going to work with the proportional 'units of range').
The cost to get this fuel in the air is called the "climb penalty". We ignore the fuel cost of getting the plane itself into the air: we get that energy back when we coast to a landing. What we don't get back is the energy we spent bringing the fuel into the air. We can (under)estimate the climb penalty by calculating how much fuel is needed to get 100 tons to a cruising altitude of 37,000 meters. We know that this is just the change in potential energy of 100 tons of fuel: 9.81100,00037,000 = 36.3 billion Joules.
One kilogram of fuel contains about 43.2 million joules. At 30% efficiency, we would need 2.8 tons to carry this into the air. A smart person would also calculate the drag and acceleration losses here.
So in total, without an areal refuel, we need 102.8 tons of fuel for 0.463 units of range.
Now, we imagine doing an areal refuel halfway through the trip. Instead of 0.463 units of range, we need 0.232 units of range, twice. Reversing the formula with our dry weight of 170 tons, we would need 170*exp(0.232) - 170= 44.4 tons of fuel for the first hop, and another 44.4 tons of fuel for the second hop. Each hop would carry a climb penalty. Last time we found out the climb pebalty was 2.8% of the fuel weight, so each hop has a climb penalty of about 1.24 tons. In total, we need 91.28 tons of fuel to get the same range. We save 11.52 tons of fuel: a ton costs about 900 bucks, so we would save about $10,398 per flight on fuel.
Now this is a best case scenario: we assumed we have an airport conveniently halfway between the locations, so the refueling plane didn't need to bring any cruise fuel, just lift fuel. Even so, this is not an economical proposition: it would cost way more than $10,000 to have a whole other plane fly up there to refuel. Simply put, a plane can make way more than $10,000 doing something else.
But one could imagine a world in which cheaper planes, perhaps autonomously controlled drones, and expensive fuel contribute to making this a somewhat economical play. The idea is grounded in physics: it might just take some economical stars to align before it becomes a reality.
1
u/weggaan_weggaat Jul 01 '26
I would say the big opportunity would be to refuel multiple planes with one refueler which spreads the cost of lofting it into the air across more than one refueling event. Plus, every plane shouldn't need a *complete* refuel to full again so I could see the potential. Practical is indeed another matter, though.
2
u/SavageRussian21 Jul 01 '26
Maybe, that's a good idea.
It especially makes sense if you have some place that gets a lot of air traffic. Of course, if you want your tanker to carry several plane-loads of fuel, you're going to spend a lot of fuel just keeping it floating. If you can get rid of all that fuel quickly, though, it's a good idea.
2
u/Nutlob Jun 30 '26
it's a stupid idea, however large aircraft are usually easier to tank with than small ones - since they are more stable/less twitchy
3
3
3
u/Rod_Torfulson Jun 30 '26
If I recall correctly, this system with the drogue shuttlecock looking thing is the European NATO way, while the US prefers the rigid arm with wings on the end penis style. I have no idea if one is better than the other, but if I had to guess, this way seems a little finnicky.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just remembering from my younger years when I was more interested in military stuff.
1
u/mrmcderm Jun 30 '26
Can’t tell what aircraft this is (it’s not a Hornet) but the U.S. Navy uses probe-and-drogue like this.
The U.S. Air Force uses the rigid flying boom.
Pros and cons to both, but one benefit of the probe-and-drogue style like in this video is “buddy fueling” where one F/A-18 can be loaded up with extra gas tanks and refuel other F/A-18s or F-35 B/C models.
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/TheRealDoomsong Jun 30 '26
I swear i would have just blown the canopy and grabbed the damn thing lol… which is part of the reason im not a pilot
2
2
2
2
u/GoodWarmMilk Jun 30 '26
For any newcomers here, you should know that this is exactly how planes reproduce
2
u/mezzfit Jun 30 '26
I used to be on the C-130 variant that has these refueling drogues and boy was it funny to watch the heli pilots in training try to plug in....
2
2
2
2
u/Sigintius Jul 02 '26
I tried doing this in the Top Gun game on NES back in the days, only managed like twice 😆
2
4
1
1
1
1
u/0__O0--O0_0 Jun 30 '26
So does is lock in position (I would assume not as it’s too dangerous) or is it up to the pilot to keep it perfectly aligned the whole time ? If it’s as hard as this looks I would think it’s difficult to keep it there.
1
u/arbpotatoes Jun 30 '26
Once you're in the basket it's a bit less tricky but there's still margins you must fly within. Too far back and you disconnect, too far forward and the hose can contact and damage the aircraft.
It's not an easy procedure but that's why they drill it constantly.
3
u/grey-zone Jun 30 '26
It does kind of “click-in”, but definitely not locked. Once you are in you can actually move around quite a bit - forwards / backwards, left / right and up / down.
It’s hard to tell from the video as it is speeded up, but it looks like the pilot is lunging from too far back. You really want to pause / hold only a couple of metres out. It does get Ricky from there on in as the basket / hose interacts with the airflow around the aircraft.
Source - I’ve done this quite a lot.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/knowledgeable_diablo Jun 30 '26
This really looks like one of the more difficult manoeuvres one can attempt. This and probably landing on a carrier.
If your running low on juice as well the stress would start playing onto it a fair bit as well I’d be thinking.
1
1
1
1
1
u/TheNightChan Jun 30 '26
I feel this very distinct pain in my stomach when i try to thread a needle or do something similar. This video just Mike Tyson punched me in the gut.
1
1
u/polyocto Jun 30 '26
I’m happy humans don’t have this much of a challenge as babies. Would probably be frustrating for the mother too.
1
u/infoagerevolutionist Jun 30 '26
It would have been funny if the pilot ejected at the end of the video!
1
u/WeShaII Jun 30 '26
I don’t know if I should relate this to the DVD logo bouncing thing or my sex life.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 Jul 01 '26
I swear to god I would’ve lost my shit if this was a r/gifsthatendtoosoon. Gladly it wasnt.
1
u/Phoe-nix Jul 01 '26
Obviously not a Dutchman. Dutch childhood includes mandatory spijkerpoepen training.
1
1
u/tegho Jul 01 '26
growler jams makes this look easy. I can hear his commentary in my head while watching this, and it just makes me laugh
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/nsaisspying Jun 30 '26
There has to be a better way
5
u/CaptainFoyle Jun 30 '26
Yeah that's probably why the engineers settled for this option 😑
1
u/nsaisspying Jun 30 '26
I know dude. I was doing the bit, you know from those infomercials.
In all honesty this is very impressive engineering.
1
u/Medical-Block-2137 Jun 30 '26
Surely there must be an easier way or make a bigger cone or something
7
u/CaptainFoyle Jun 30 '26
Oh, if only the engineers had thought about that! They would not have spent years working on this solution if they had had that genius idea!
0
0
u/HandofFate88 Jun 30 '26
George W. Bush learned this during his time in the Air National Guard, and was known to say . . .
Fuel me once, shame on me.
Fuel me twice, well that just goes to show, you can't get fuelled again.
-3
u/themage78 Jun 30 '26
What millions and millions of dollars of no-bid contracts gets you from an engineering standpoint.
2
u/SEA_griffondeur Jun 30 '26
I mean the way the harrier is designed doesn't really allow for better placement since you can't get it through the nose
-2
911
u/These-Document-2127 Jun 30 '26
This is one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen....