Computerizing AAR Mission Planning

You will learn how NATO planning papers explain the shift from manual fuel calculation to computer assisted tanker planning and what a planner must still reconcile on the day. The Wikipedia page does not publish software menus, fuel graph forms or AIRPLAN version history.

What did paper planning have to solve first?

When you look at the early flights you see a simple trade. If you take off heavy with fuel you must leave weapons, cargo or personnel behind, and if you take off heavy with payload you run short of range. The Wikipedia account describes the answer that crews practiced in the 1920s, a hose passed between two slow aircraft in close line astern formation, with fuel run down from a hand held tank into the normal filler of the other aircraft. You can picture why a graph on paper mattered, because every extra gallon had to be weighed against takeoff weight and distance to the next meeting point. The account gives the 25 June 1923 contact between two DH-4B aircraft and the 27 to 28 August 1923 endurance flight where the receiver stayed aloft for more than 37 hours with nine contacts for 687 US gallons of gasoline and 38 US gallons of engine oil. It also describes the looped hose method where the tanker climbed above the receiver so fuel could flow under gravity, which tells you why altitude, closure and timing had to be written down before takeoff.

Why range stopped being a bomber question

After World War II the problem changed from records to patrols. The Wikipedia account says aerial refueling was used on a large scale to extend the range of strategic bombers and, since the Vietnam War, in large scale military operations. You can follow the logic in the Cold War passages, where B-47 and B-52 aircraft flew orbits around assigned positions and tankers refilled them so a force could stay in the air through the day and still reach distant targets. The same logic appears in the British passages on Valiant tankers with one hose unit in the bomb bay, the 1960 nonstop refueled flight from the United Kingdom to Singapore and the later shift to Victor tankers with three hoses, one on the fuselage and one pod under each wing. France bought 12 C-135F tankers to support Mirage IVA aircraft, a total confirmed by the French Air Force, often flown in pairs with one aircraft carrying a weapon and the other carrying tanks and a buddy pack. When you read those pairings you understand why planners needed standard rendezvous points, fuel onload tables and alternate tracks, all worked out before engine start.

What changes when you operate far from home?

During the Cold War the requirement described in the Joint Air Power Competence Centre paper was limited to support of long range strategic forces, because many European members assumed their forces would operate very close to home. After the Cold War, NATO took on expeditionary operations, training and exercises beyond the traditional North Atlantic area, and the paper says demand grew for more receivers at extended ranges without a matching growth in tanker assets. In 2002 NATO recognized the overall shortfall in the Prague Capabilities Commitment. Current policy in that paper holds individual nations responsible for training, maintenance and deployment of forces to and from an area of operations. Refueling is described as critical to timely deployment, to a smaller logistical footprint on the ground, to fewer ground aborts during transit and to a high tempo once operations start. For you as a reader, that is the moment when paper graphs stop being enough, because a deployment now mixes national crews, distant bases and tight movement windows.

How do boom and drogue change the plan?

Your plan must fit the hardware on both ends. The Wikipedia account defines the two main refueling systems as probe and drogue, which is simpler to adapt to existing aircraft, and the flying boom, which offers faster transfer but requires a dedicated operator station. In the boom description a rigid telescoping tube with small control surfaces is flown by the operator into a receptacle, with toggles locking the nozzle during transfer and an air refueling envelope that the receiver must hold. The account gives up to 1,000 US gallons or 6,500 pounds per minute for the KC-135, and it notes that a boom serves one aircraft at a time. A rigid boom with an operator station therefore sets your contact time and your sequence. The drogue side trails a flexible hose from a drum unit with a basket that steadies the hose and guides the probe. The receiver pushes forward a few feet, the drum reels to keep tension balanced, a green light shows flow and amber plus red control cutoff and disconnect. Tankers with multipoint hose systems can serve two receivers at once and cut time for a four aircraft package by as much as 75 percent. Your choice of track, spacing and fuel reserve follows from those differences.

Why can one tanker not serve every receiver?

You cannot assume that any tanker fits any receiver. The Wikipedia account states that the probe and drogue system is not compatible with flying boom equipment, which creates a problem for planners with mixed forces. It cites the Royal Canadian Air Force interest in the F-35A, which uses the boom receptacle, while the national fleet uses probe and drogue tankers. The workaround described is the boom drogue adapter on KC-135 aircraft, a hose and steel basket fitted to the end of the boom that the operator holds still while the receiver flies the probe into the basket. Naval aviators call it the iron maiden because a soft canvas basket guides an off center probe while steel pivots and can slap the fuselage. The hose does not reel into a drum in this fit, it bends with push, and too much push can loop it around the probe or nose while too little push stops the coupling. Some tankers carry both types, such as the KC-10 with a boom and a separate hose system on the centerline, usable one at a time, and many KC-135 aircraft carry dual under wing multipoint attachments. A hose basket and coupling behaves one way, a rigid boom another, and your mission table must list which receiver can use which station.

Who owns the tanker when NATO calls?

You plan with aircraft that belong to someone else. The Competence Centre paper, the Air to Air Refuelling Flight Plan published in February 2011, assumes tanker aircraft are national assets under national command and control, including civilian tankers contracted by a nation, and it states that NATO has no refueling assets of its own although national assets can be provided for NATO use upon national approval. That absolute is the record as the plan wrote it in February 2011, and the Alliance picture has since gained one NATO-owned fleet: the Multinational Multi Role Tanker Transport Fleet, which NATO records as owned by NATO and managed by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency. During crises and conflicts, transfer of authority follows the NATO generation of forces procedure. Agreements between providers and receivers are driven by bilateral memoranda of understanding, with legal, financial, technical and operational details coordinated for each tanker and receiver pairing, even under transfer of authority. NATO influence on national buying is described as limited to the defense planning process and the requirements review, with alliance priorities and standardization agreements as considerations while nations buy on national interests. The paper traces the advisory office from the 2001 air refueling coordination cell in the Reaction Forces Air Staff at Kalkar to the 2005 formation of the Competence Centre with a dedicated cell, and a ten year project to develop tactical publications and standardization agreements. That is why your planning file must hold authorities and clearances as well as fuel numbers.

What can you still check in the open documents?

You can still build a sound picture from what the two pages do print. The Flight Plan states its aim as informing the wider alliance, setting guidelines for better interoperability, reviewing current capabilities, naming standardization problems and laying out future considerations with a catalogue of current and future assets. Its scope covers aircraft and the systems that support them, including mission planning, basing and training, grouped under effects, future requirements, future employment concepts, additional roles and steps to improve interoperability. It warns that it is not prescriptive and not a cure for every issue. The Wikipedia account adds the tactical reasons that make a planner ask for tankers, longer combat radius for attack and fighter aircraft, longer time on station for patrol aircraft with fewer airframes for the same task, and relief from short runway limits where a jet can launch with full combat load and refuel right after takeoff. It also records contracted support, with Omega Aerial Refueling Services and Metrea Strategic Mobility working for the United States Navy and a June 2023 commercial refueling of United States Air Force aircraft, plus NASA work on hands off probe and drogue contact for unmanned aircraft in the KQ-X program.

The Wikipedia page on aerial refueling is an overview article with definitions, development history and operating detail. You find there the early hose trials, the looped hose period, the probe and drogue and boom descriptions, tanker and receiver procedures, compatibility notes and Cold War to Gulf War operational passages. You can use it to compare boom flow, single contact limits and hose multipoint timing before you turn to the Competence Centre paper for authorities, memoranda and standardization steps.