KC-135 ARAI testing aims at fueling efficiency

  • Published
  • By Kenji Thuloweit
  • 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The Air Force Flight Test Center constantly conducts flight tests and gathers data to maintain America's tactical dominance in the sky. Along with testing the increased lethality of weapons systems and state-of-the-art aircraft, the AFFTC looks to improve the Air Force's efficiency. The KC-135 Automatic Receiver Aircraft Identification (ARAI) testing aims to do just that.

The ARAI is designed to be installed on KC-135 tankers to make the air-to-air refueling to a receiver plane more efficient and economical. Phase 2 testing for the ARAI has began at Edwards, which included a flight test April 7 using a NKC-135 test tanker installed with ARAI and an F-16 Fighting Falcon equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The NKC-135 will use its ARAI antennas to scan the F-16 to see if it recognizes it and accurately gauge the amount of fuel transferred.

"It's an inventory control measure similar to what the large department stores have," said Steve Walden, Test Operations, project manager. "It's a similar process to when you walk through the passive system at the door, the tags on the backs of CDs and DVDs are automatically inventoried. That is ARAI in the tanker, fly up inventory control."

Currently, when an airplane approaches a KC-135 for fuel, the receiver aircraft's information is manually tracked by the Boom Operator. Information for the receiver plane, such as tail number and squadron, must either be visually identified or communicated by radio. During night operations and radio silence situations, this can be complicated.

"This helps clean up the process so the boomer can focus on what's really important, refueling the aircraft and completing the mission, rather than administrative tasks," said Karen Etzkorn, Boeing, Systems Engineer and Principal Investigator.

Ms. Etzkorn added when visual identification and communications are hindered for some reason, it takes longer for the KC-135 crew to accurately log the aircraft and fuel information after the refueling process is finished, and sometimes after they land.

Manually entered information can be inaccurate and thus costly. With the ARAI/RFID system, a receiver aircraft with the RFID tags can basically be scanned by the ARAI and all data it retrieves is logged into a computer aboard the tanker. Accurate information is important because when an aircraft is refueled by a KC-135, the plane's squadron is responsible for the fuel cost.

"There's millions of dollars lost every year because of tracking for fuels that are unaccounted for or allocated incorrectly," said Mr. Walden. "When you go into a certain situation when there's no communication (between the two aircraft), you have to estimate and that's an example of when you could lose money."

Mr. Walden said the ARAI system could potentially save the Air Force money by accurately tracking the amount of fuel downloaded and charging squadrons the proper dollar amount for the refueling. The Air Force would be able to budget their fuel needs and costs more efficiently.

The Phase 2 KC-135 ARAI testing is part of the "proof of concept" portion of the testing process, which includes aerial testing. Once Phase 2 is complete, the testing results and data will be forwarded to Air Force Materiel Command for review.