Scott Nicholas
Airbus‘ defense and space business has signed a research agreement with the Australia’s air force to collaborate on the development of an automatic air-to-air refueling capacity for the country’s multirole tanker transport aircraft, Defense News reported Thursday.
Nigel Pittaway writes the two-year project aims to integrate an automatic refueling feature into the KC-30A aircraft’s aerial refueling boom system that will involve hardware modifications such as the addition of a vertically mounted camera to support triangulation and boost depth perception of the system.
The project is one of four Airbus DS strategies to develop smarter multirole tanker and boost capacities without a need for major modifications, the report noted.
Air Marshal Leo Davies, chief of Australia’s air force, announced at the Avalon Airshow Thursday that the KC-30A has reached final operational capability status, Australian Aviation reported.
Australian Defense Minister Marise Payne said the KC-30A has supported various military operations in Iraq and offloaded more than 74 million pounds of fuel to coalition aircraft such as F/A-18A Hornet and E-7A Wedgetail .
