CF-18's make emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland

[Sheerin]

Five Canadian fighter jets forced to land at Shannon
 
 
 
  14:35 Saturday October 9th 2004
 


Five Canadian Air Force fighter jets have been forced to land at Shannon Airport after experiencing technical problems while refuelling over the Atlantic.
The five F-18s were en route from Saragossa in Spain to an Air Force base in Canada and were due to refuel in mid air from a KC 130 tanker.

However, the refuelling drone on the back of the tanker failed to deploy and was unable to dock with the planes.

All five landed at Shannon shortly before 1.00pm for refuelling.

It is as yet unclear if they would continue their journey.

This incident comes just days after a Canadian submarine got into difficulties of the coast of Donegal, when one sailor died and two others were injured following a fire on board the vessel.


Found this in the Irish Independant today http://www.unison.ie/breakingnews/index.php3?ca=9&si=62169, i'm not sure if the link will work or not...

 

[canuck101]

the link did not work for me but this one may: http://212.2.162.45/news/story.asp?j=120207090&p=yzxzx7796&n=120207850

Scary hope things do not come in three's.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Sounds like a problem on the refueler and not on our end.  The link doesn't seem to work either.

 

[Inch]

Have you heard whether or not it was one of our tankers? If it was, yet another problem with the Hercs.  :

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Your right about 3's.  The new link does work.  There is a live fire ex in Wainrght and I hope it doesn't happen there (or anywhere).

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Well I guess I'm stupid here but I didn't know we had refuelers.

 

[Inch]

Yep, I'm pretty sure we converted a few Hercs to do the job until we get the Airbuses back.

 

[Inch]

I found a pic for ya.

 

[Cloud Cover]

I think there are 5 KC130H based out of Winnipeg. Note the paint job on the herc in Inch's pic. It seems we have abandoned this scheme in favour of a "golf course green" paint scheme on all C130's. Anybody know why? 

 

[Sheerin]

Thanks for posting that link (Found it after I searched google news); not surprised my link didn't work, my father pays for a subscription and does newises are pretty good at preventing 'theft'.


I could have sworn I read/saw else where that it was an American KC-135 that was supposed to refuel them, guess I was wrong.   Although the press release I found on the airforce website (re our involvement in the exercise) didn't mention anything about a herc going over.   http://www.airforce.forces.ca/3wing/news/releases_e.asp?cat=20&id=560

This was also the second story on the CTV national news tonight, and the third was about how the CH-149's are costing the Military 3 million extra/year for mamaintenance

 

[loyalcana]

Thanks for posting that link (Found it after I searched google news); not surprised my link didn't work, my father pays for a subscription and does newises are pretty good at preventing 'theft'.


I could have sworn I read/saw else where that it was an American KC-135 that was supposed to refuel them, guess I was wrong.   Although the press release I found on the airforce website (re our involvement in the exercise) didn't mention anything about a herc going over.   http://www.airforce.forces.ca/3wing/news/releases_e.asp?cat=20&id=560

This was also the second story on the CTV national news tonight, and the third was about how the CH-149's are costing the Military 3 million extra/year for mamaintenance

I heard the same thing here too, I think your right.

 

[Storm]

This was also the second story on the CTV national news tonight, and the third was about how the CH-149's are costing the Military 3 million extra/year for mamaintenance

Hmm... missed that one. Out of curiosity, $3 Million extra compared to what? The Labs? Above what was predicted?

 

[Sheerin]

What they were saying about the Cormorants was that instead of being in the shop 7 hours for every hour of flight time they're in for (and i think this what they said) 22 hours.   And because of this the maintenance budget had to be increased by 3 million a year.   It was a very short piece that lasted no more than 45 seconds, and on top of that, i wasn't really paying attention (my bad ).

heres the CTV story about the cormorants http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1097353345082_10/?hub=Canada

 

[Inch]

In all fairness, helos are pretty complex machines, lots of moving parts and lots of things to fix. 22 hours though sounds a little much, considering the latest number for the Sea King is 30hrs and I think the Lab was in the same range as the Sea King.

Also, keep in mind it's not like we go flying for an hour followed by 30 hrs of maintenance, I'm pretty sure that's a cumulative average over the course of a year or so, the maintenance follows a schedule and every so many hours it goes in for inspections. I'm not too in tune with the maintenance side of the house, I just drive the bus.  I'm also not sure if it takes into account the number of techs working on the aircraft, ie. 2 techs work for 15 hrs = 30 hours of maintenance.

Cheers

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Thanks for the pics.

 

[Zoomie]

It was most likely a KC-135 of USAF ownership.  Our KC-130's (aka Hercules) do not conduct strategic refueling.  This is the only reason why we are adapting our Polaris (aka Airbus) into strategic refuelers.  The Hercules also has two refuelling pods on its wings (as seen in Inch's photo) - the KC-135 only has one large boom that retracts/extends from below the tail.

http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=110

When we lost the old Boeing 707's, Canada lost its only method of refuelling her Fighters on long hauls - like crossing the Atlantic.  We have been piggy-backing off the USAF ever since.

 

[Scott]

In all fairness, helos are pretty complex machines, lots of moving parts and lots of things to fix. 22 hours though sounds a little much, considering the latest number for the Sea King is 30hrs and I think the Lab was in the same range as the Sea King.

Also, keep in mind it's not like we go flying for an hour followed by 30 hrs of maintenance, I'm pretty sure that's a cumulative average over the course of a year or so, the maintenance follows a schedule and every so many hours it goes in for inspections. I'm not too in tune with the maintenance side of the house, I just drive the bus.   I'm also not sure if it takes into account the number of techs working on the aircraft, ie. 2 techs work for 15 hrs = 30 hours of maintenance.

Cheers

I was informed by an aircraft mechanic that when they state things like one hour in flight equals 30 hours fixin' that it is nothing more than political spin. Those numbers are based on a number of tech's working on the same craft which is normal and also on the hourly required mmaintenance'sthat your machine must go through. Inch, what are these hourly requirements on the Sea King. I mean, you have every so many hours for this, that and the other thing. Any help?

 

[Sheerin]

Are KC-135's booms compatable with our CF-18 receptacles? 

 

[Inch]

It's true, they do go in for routine maintenance. I don't know off hand what the maintenance schedule is for the Sea King.  As a general rule, on most aircraft you've got minor inspections every 50hrs, sometimes 100hrs, the major inspections are 500hrs. The Griffon for example I know has a tail rotor inspection every 12.5 hrs, nothing major but still a consideration. There's also what we call "snags", snags are things that happen when we go to start or during flight, for example: Say during the start you notice one of your tachs isn't working, you shut down and enter a snag in the books and the techs will go fix the problem. Sometimes they can fix it while you wait with the machine running, sometimes you have to shut 'er down.

Yeah, the number of hours for maintenance is definitely made up for the politicians and public. If you've got 5 techs on the machine, 30hrs worth of work can be done in 6hrs, it's all how you look at it. Where the number of hours required tends creeps up is when unanticipated things start breaking, ie. it goes in for a routine inspection and you notice a problem. One recent one we had on the Sea King, IIRC, was a problem with the drive shafts lining up, they replaced one of the drive shafts (the tail rotor has a long multi section drive shaft driven by the main gear box) and the bloody thing wouldn't line up, everytime they fixed a problem, a new one came up. That just eats up the time, having to fix problem after problem, most of which you didn't know about until you fix the first one.

Does that clarify it somewhat?

Cheers

Sheerin, you answered while I was typing.  The KC135s have both, the probe and the basket. I found a pic of a KC-135 refueling a Jaguar.

 

[Sheerin]

Thanks, Inch!

damn you're a good resource to have  

It would make sense for the KC-135's to have both...