Saudis Confirm A330 Tanker Buy

www.defenseindustrydaily.com...

EADS North America has announced that The Royal Saudi Air Force will acquire 3 of EADS A330 Multi-role Tanker/Transports (MRTTs), equipped with both EADS centerline-mounted ARBS (advanced Air Refueling Boom System) for use with its F-15s et. al., and a pair of underwing hose-and-drogue refueling pods suitable for use with the Saudis' forthcoming Eurofighter Typhoon Tranche 2s.

This is the aircraft thats the preffered choice for the RAF and is being boght by RAAF , Saudi and UAE. Its bigger than the 767 based alternative and offers a significant cargo payload as well.

reply to post by Harlequin


The tankers are to be converted at EADS CASA facilities in Getafe (Madrid, Spain) and are to be delivered starting late 2009. Makes me wish that The A310 for Canada where going through much quicker we have one but I have yet to hear about the second. Its nice since in a combined cargo / troop transport, 12 pallets and 54 troops can be carried.

[edit on 22/08/06 by Canada_EH]

Im not all that surprised as Saudi like to spread its money around quite a bit. Airbus I think will get these a/c out pretty quickly IMHO to get some boom time. Im not sure any of the other operational Airbus refulers have the boom? Anybody?

this is the aircraft being offered for the US tanker replacement - and i bet real $$$ that it will get operational `boom and hose` time before the boeing 767 version does.

you ask wether many other airbus have a boom? well only US built aircraft use a boom - everyone else uses a drogue and hose

reply to post by Harlequin


The boom from my understanding hasn't even been past inital A2A contact with a 16 with no transfer of fuel. As of June 15 they had a testbed aircraft for ARBS at the paris airshow so they have been pretty careful with their pace. Also here is the artical on the contact test. www.flightglobal.com...

Pictured while connecting with a Portuguese air force Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter at an altitude of 27,000ft (8,230m) earlier this month, the success came during the 60th flight test of a company-owned A310 demonstrator carrying the 17m-long ARBS.

No mention of expected wet in air transfer testing date. shoudl be some time this quarter though.

Also Canada and Germany have put their A310 aircraft through the Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) program which updates the airframe for tanker operations as dual wing drogue operation.

[edit on 22/08/06 by Canada_EH]

Australia will have the boom as well as the drogue.

Boeing KC-767 drogue hasn't passed fuel yet, although there boom has. I've read the boeing has had to to a lot of redesign work on there drogue system don't know how far they have got.