European Industry Studies Ways To Automate Hose-and-Drogue Refueling

air-to-air refueling from a hose-and-drogue system

Refueling from a hose-and-drogue system can be challenging in poor weather and turbulence. The technologies resulting from the EDA work could make it much easier.

Credit: Senior Aircraftman Tom Cann/Royal Air Force
The hose-and-drogue method of aerial refueling has mostly been unchanged since it was developed in the late 1940s. An invention of Alan Cobham’s Flight Refuelling Ltd., the system requires the receiver aircraft, equipped with a probe, to plug into a hose stabilized by a shuttlecock-like drogue. It...

European Industry Studies Ways To Automate Hose-and-Drogue Refueling is available to both Aviation Week & Space Technology and AWIN subscribers.

Subscribe now to read this content, plus receive critical analysis into emerging trends, technological advancements, operational best practices and continuous updates to policy, requirements and budgets.

Already a subscriber to AW&ST or AWIN? Log in with your existing email and password.