ArmChairCivvy wrote:"May 2/16: A USMC MV-22 Osprey has given a successful ground refueling of a Marine F-35B Joint Strike Fighter. The one-hour test consisted of hooking up fuel transfer lines between the two aircraft with the MV-22 fueling the F-35B with an aerial refueling to follow. Both aircraft will be used to allow the Marine Corps to employ assets in austere environments on short notice without having to rely on long-term planning and fixed facilities."
Think the US Marines live in a fantasy world of their own if think you can operate F-35B/Osprey in austere environment.
The Marines have had to install custom concrete bases to take the extreme heat of the Osprey vertically mounted turbo-shaft jets for repeated take off and landing at their bases.
F-35B, Aviation Week “… the Pentagon bought the F-35B for two reasons: it can land on an LHA/LHD-class amphibious warfare ship, and it can operate from an improvised forward operating location (FOL), created around a 3,000-ft. runway.”// “The main engine exhaust, the engineers said, was hot and energetic enough to have a 50% chance of spalling concrete on the first VL [vertical landing]. “Spalling” occurs when water in the concrete boils faster than it can escape, and steam blows flakes away from the surface.”// “And what Navfac calls “standard airfield concrete” is military-grade, made with aggregate and Portland cement. Many runways are built with asphaltic concrete—aggregate in a bitumen binder—which softens and melts under heat.”
“At the Navy’s Patuxent River, Md., flight-test center, F-35Bs perform VLs on a pad of AM-2 aluminum matting, protecting the concrete from heat and blast.” // “The Marines could use AM-2 landing pads. But AM-2 is not a friend to the agility that justifies the F-35B over other forms of expeditionary airpower. An Air Force study calls it “slow to install, difficult to repair, [with] very poor air-transport-ability characteristics.” A single 100 X 100-ft. VL pad weighs around 30 tons and comprises 400 pieces, each individually installed by two people.”
The internal fuel load of an F-35B is ~ 6.5 tons. A squadron of 10 aircraft would need 650 tons to conduct a 100 sorties a week. How do Marines get sufficient fuel, munitions, spares, technicians, computers, mission planners, food & water to a dozen+ Marine austere bases.
PS RAF Marham airfield was updated to take the F-35Bs, interesting to note it 'only' cost £500 million.
more demanding
I gets you drift but for Osprey its not always possabile for the aircraft to pump fuel on the ground, it all depends on how it's plumbed up and with the engine in feather mode to operate pumps.
