Influence of the receiver aircraft’s bow wave on the motion characteristics of the drogue in hose-drogue refueling system

Abstract

In the docking process of hose-drogue aerial refueling system, the bow wave effect of an approaching receiver aircraft will produce a strong aerodynamic effect on the drogue which intensify the deviation of drogue and increase the difficulty of the docking. This paper presents a receiver aircraft’s bow wave effect modeling method based on potential flow theory and considers the major shape characteristics of the receiver aircraft. This method is used in a probe-drogue aerial refueling dynamic simulation system, which combined with the hose-drogue dynamic model and tanker wake dynamic model. The motion characteristics of the drogue under different flight altitude, flight velocity and docking velocity are calculated and analyzed. The results show that when the other conditions are certain, when the flight altitude increases, the bow wave effect decreases the vertical and longitudinal influence on the drogue, increases the lateral influence. When the flight velocity increases, the bow wave effect increases the vertical and longitudinal influence on the drogue, decreases the lateral influence. When the docking velocity increases, the drogue’s swing displacement and the swing velocity are all increased.