RAF Voyager @ RIAT 2019 @ RAF Fairford. Gloucestershire, England, UK (Royal International Air Tattoo 2019)

            Voyager is the largest aircraft in the RAF fleet with a length of 58.82m, wingspan of 60.3m and height of 17.39m

Powerplant: two Rolls Royce Trent 7002b Turbofans each producing 72,000lbs thrust

Maximum speed Mach 0.86 (approx.655mph)

Maximum range at full cargo and passenger capacity: 4,500 nautical miles (5,200miles)

ABOUT THE VOYAGER

ROLE

Voyager is the RAF’s sole air-to-air refuelling (AAR) tanker and also operates as a strategic air transport.  The aircraft is in service as the Voyager KC.Mk 2, equipped with two underwing pods for refuelling fast jets, and as the Voyager KC.Mk 3, with an additional centreline hose for use by large aircraft. 

CAPABILITY

Fuel offloaded during AAR is taken from the aircraft’s standard wing and fuselage tanks, leaving the cabin free for up to 291 personnel and the hold available for freight.  As a tanker, capabilities include the ability to operate a ‘towline’, where the Voyager orbits around a prescribed area awaiting ‘receivers’, or in a ‘trail’, where it flies with a number of fast jets, refuelling them over long ranges while taking responsibility for the formation’s fuel and navigation.

Alternatively, it can operate as a passenger aircraft in much the same way as a civilian airliner, but delivering personnel safely into theatre thanks to its defensive aids suite.  Voyager also offers considerable capacity for the movement of palletised and/or bulk freight in its lower fuselage hold.  A versatile aeromedical configuration, including the ability to carry up to 40 stretchers and three critical care patients is available, as is a modest VIP passenger fit. 

TYPE HISTORY

Airbus Industrie launched its combined A340/A330 programme on June 5, 1987.  It aimed to produce a family of closely related widebody airliners based on the four-engined, long-haul A340 and twin-engined, medium-haul A330.  The latter achieved its first flight, with General Electric engines, on November 2, 1992, with the initial Rolls-Royce Trent-powered machine following on January 31, 1994.

Typically for Airbus, the A330’s pilots interact with its fly-by-wire system via sidestick controllers rather than the yoke traditionally associated with large aircraft.  The basic A330-200 and longer A330-300 have been developed into a wide range of subvariants offering revised performance and different maximum take-off weights.

The earlier A310 widebody had found favour with several air arms as the basis for conversion into a military transport or multi-role tanker transport (MRTT), and Airbus recognised the type’s potential as a possible TriStar/VC10 replacement in the early 1990s, trialling a modified aircraft alongside RAF fast jets in 1995.  It was subsequently expected to offer the A310 MRTT against the UK’s Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) requirement, announced as a likely private finance initiative (PFI) programme in 2000.  In the event, the procurement process was delayed and although Airbus did not tender, in 2004 the Ministry of Defence announced

Taken in: UK / England / Cotswold District / Fairford (show map)

Taken on: July 20, 2019

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Sets appears in: • RIAT 2019 Airshow

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