Sometime early in the new year, the Air Force hopes to get the go-ahead from the Pentagon for production of the KC-46 tanker that will replace the current fleet of old and increasingly fragile aircraft.
The path to production for Boeing’s KC-46, estimated to cost $188 million each, has been less than smooth. Its first flight was to have been in 2014, but that event did not take place until September.
And once the production lines start rolling, it’s not going to be particularly speedy: The first KC-46 is scheduled to be fully operational by September 2018, but all 179 of the first batch won’t be completed until 2028.
Meanwhile, maintainers will be racing to keep a sizable share of some 500 KC-10 and KC-135 aircraft in operation, an increasingly difficult job for the busy and rapidly aging planes. With some of the current tanker fleet soon to mark 60 years in service, it’s no wonder they spend more than 20 percent of their time in repair.
When they break down, nearly two-thirds require at least 12 hours of repair.
Like dear old granddad, these aircraft are high mileage — but the Air Force cannot afford to cut them any slack.
On average, an Air Force tanker takes to the skies somewhere in the world every 15 minutes of every day, headed to refuel aircraft from not only the U.S. but 17 other nations.
Given that that demand is not going to slow anytime soon and that the current tanker fleet may increasingly become a liability in terms of repair costs and safety issues, the Pentagon should push to accelerate the pace of production for the KC-46.
Tankers are too important to the mission to be slow-rolled to shave costs while leaving much of the work to worn-out aircraft.
Despite their age, they will have to hang on for a few more years until the arrival of a replacement tanker, the KC-46A.
