Yep, draggy little jet. The wings are forward and overall make a stubby draggy bow wake. Any faster than 285 and it pushes up to the AOA vanes of the KC-135. The motors are not on isolators/shock mounts due to the long pylons to make the blown lift into the flaps- we make our own AR turbulence if the stick is over handled. The wake is bigger than Fred, a more efficient overall aircraft at cruise for its size. On the Gucci, #2 noticably blows onto the tail in closure, then at contact we're inside most of it. Done properly, you can use #2 of a KC-10 on the ground to deice the plane behind it....
Originally Posted by
KC10 FATboy
Funny post. Did you know that the C-17 pushes the KC-10 around more so than the C-5? (IMO) I guess the C-17 has a bigger bow wave.
The C-17 has some very intersting resonance characteristics during AR. First, the tail wiggles (probably the turbies from #2). Second, the engines wiggle. Third, the wing flexes up and down end-to-end and it warps (or twists) from the weight of the engines pulling forward and down, so much so, it causes the winglets to visibly move forward. It's pretty cool.