I've seen how KC-135s refuel planes, but can helicopters refuel in flight? If so, how, without having the rotorblades slice off the fuel hose?
by 
Egao No Genki
ANSWERS: 4
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Helicopters do refuel in flight. The fuel plane is at the same altitude and the fuel hose has a large funnel shaped end. The helicopter sticks a rigid fuel recieving tube into the funnel. I tried to include a link to an in flight refuel video, but I'm having trouble posting links. If you google "helicopter inflight refueling" you will find some good sites.
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There are two ways of refuelling in mid-air: the probe method, whcn the refuelling aircraft points a rigid probe downwards into the top of the aircraft being fuelled, and the drougue method, when the tanker trails a long hose with a drogue on the end and the accepting aircraft sticks a probe into it. Helicopters have to use the drogue method. The bottom end of the refuelling hose ais almost horizontal, and the probe on the helicopter sticks quite a long way forward, so that the hose can lie under the arc of the rotors. However, refueling helicopters is rather more tricky than refuelling fixed witn aircraft. Apart from anything else, the helicopter has to be travelling quite faste (for a helicopter) to keep up with the tanker, whereas jet-to-jet refuelling can be done at a speed comfortable to both.
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Heres a picture of a UH-60 BlackHawk helicopter refueling.
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Blackhawks, H-53s, CH-47s and Merlins (among others) can all refuel mid-air, but the tanker has to be flying near stall whilst the chopper is at the upper end of its speed range. A variation of aerial refueling is when a naval helicopter approaches a warship (not necessarily suited for landing operations) and receives fuel through the cabin while hovering. Note: Alternatively, some helicopters equipped with a probe extending out the front can be refueled from a drogue-equipped tanker aircraft in a similar manner to fixed-wing aircraft by matching a high forward speed for a helicopter to a slow speed for the fixed-wing tanker. Therefore a less ambiguous meaning for the abbreviation HIFR would be HOVER In-Flight Refueling. Note also: The transfer of cargo while an aircraft is hovering is known within the US Navy and the United States Coast Guard as Vertical Replenishment (VERTREP). (Source: Wikipedia)
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