RAF Brize Norton

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OurAirports members at BZZ

RAF Brize Norton is the home base for 2 OurAirports members. It has had 21 visitors.

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Picture of sherriff
Picture of sherriff

BRIZE 2019.

Busy military aerodrome.

Based aircraft types, currently......

Military.

A330.... A2A refuel, Passenger, Freight, VIP.

C17.....Heavylift freight.

A400....Freight.

C130J....Freight, Tactical, Paradropping.

Civilian.

Skyvan/Dornier20....parachute training under civilian contract.

PA28.....Brize flying club.....civilian.

Visiting aircraft strictly ppr.

Picture of

Tristars and VC10s

The reason the RAF doesn't use VC10s for passenger is because they are old, knackered and there would be absolute bloody uproar if one came down whilst full of soldiers. Tristars are a similar story, they were twenty years old when the RAF got them in the early nineties, and as a result are similarly knackered, and spend a lot of time being fixed.

This is why the MoD has replaced these aircraft with the lovely new, fuel efficient A330 Voyager MRTT.

And the RAF charter in civilian carriers for the same reason other airlines charter aircraft, when demand for airtrooping exceeds the RAFs ability to supply it.

Picture of

Civilian carriers V Military aircraft

Why do we use Civilian carriers (normally the cheapest bidder, like the recently bust 'Fly Globespan', or the oldest airframes, like Omni Air's DC-10s) when the sides of the runway at Brize are lined with RAF VC-10s and Tristars? What is the point having RAF passenger aircraft if we don't use them regularly?

Picture of ptomblin

re: Civilian carriers V Military aircraft

You refer to the DC-10 as an old airframe, and yet you prefer the VC-10, which first flew nearly 50 years ago? I'm willing to bet the DC-10 is *way* more fuel efficient and cheaper to operate. Probably safer too. And according to Wikipedia, the only flying VC-10s are tankers - the rest are there for spare parts.

Wikipedia also says that some of the Tristars passenger/tanker combos, and some of the passenger Tristars have counter measures against ground fire so they are used to fly people into possibly hostile places like Iraq and Afghanistan. So it's not that they don't use the Tristars, just that they don't waste them on moving people around in safe airspaces.


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