{"id":40851,"date":"2015-03-17T20:42:07","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T20:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2015\/03\/17\/kc-46a-first-flight-facing-delay\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:18:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:18:57","slug":"kc-46a-first-flight-facing-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/training-sim\/2015\/03\/17\/kc-46a-first-flight-facing-delay\/","title":{"rendered":"KC-46A First Flight Facing Delay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 The KC-46A Pegasus tanker program director is &#8220;not comfortable&#8221; saying the tanker&#8217;s first flight will happen as planned in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brig. Gen. Duke Richardson, program executive officer for tankers, told an audience Tuesday that he is now targeting a more general date of second quarter of this calendar year, which extends <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">all the way <\/span>to the end of June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;What I&#8217;m trying not to do is get fixated on days,&#8221; Richardson said at the CreditSuisse\/McAleese conference, held annually in Washington.<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">DC.<\/span> &#8220;I feel more comfortable<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">y<\/span> saying second quarter calendar 15. I feel more comfortable with that.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The KC-46A will replace the majority of the service&#8217;s current tanker fleet with 179 new planes, based on a Boeing commercial design. The contract protects the Air Force from <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">for <\/span>major cost overruns on the way to having 18 planes ready to go <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">tankers <\/span><span class=\"rte rte-comment\">on the ramp<\/span> in 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first engineering, manufacturing, development (EMD) configuration flew in late December, while first flight of a full-up KC-46A had been scheduled for April. That now appears to be slipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Richardson acknowledged that there are schedule pressures driving the tests, noting that the six-month margin that had been built into the tanker EMD phase has been used up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I take that very seriously,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m working pretty darn hard to pull some schedule margin back in.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because of that tight schedule, Richardson said he wants to get the first flight up as soon as possible, regardless of whether <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">if <\/span>the tanker is in its final configuration or just one that meets the requirements for first official flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;As soon as we can get it up, we need to get it up,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We need to do what&#8217;s needed so it can fly safely, but \u2026 I&#8217;m not looking for the perfect airplane. I&#8217;m looking for a safe airplane so I can get it up and start collecting the air worthiness data.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A spokeswoman for Boeing, the prime contractor on the tanker program, said the company is &#8220;working hard every day to get ready for that first flight and have a good team in place putting forth the effort to keep it on track and moving forward&#8230; it will fly when it&#8217;s ready.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It wasn&#8217;t all bad news from Richardson, who said overall the program was &#8220;very healthy&#8221; and has benefitted from &#8220;incredible&#8221; requirements stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He also highlighted two potential foreign sales opportunities: a direct commercial sale to South Korea and a foreign military sale to Japan. Korea is expected to downselect its choice of tanker in May, while Richardson said he expects an RFP from Japan sometime in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Email: <a href=\"mailto:amehta@defensenews.com\">amehta@defensenews.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twitter: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AaronMehta\" title=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AaronMehta\">@AaronMehta<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The KC-46A Pegasus tanker program director is &#8220;not comfortable&#8221; saying the tanker&#8217;s first flight will happen as planned in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":82981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":26,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,33,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3378],"class_list":["post-40851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-home","category-training-sim"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"UFEFJWUMGRGNTO7JOZCTCK43FI","arc_canonical_url":"\/training-sim\/2015\/03\/17\/kc-46a-first-flight-facing-delay\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>KC-46A First Flight Facing Delay - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The KC-46A Pegasus tanker program director is &quot;not comfortable&quot; saying the tanker&#039;s first flight will happen as planned in April.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/training-sim\/2015\/03\/17\/kc-46a-first-flight-facing-delay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"KC-46A First Flight Facing Delay\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The KC-46A Pegasus tanker program director is &quot;not comfortable&quot; saying the tanker&#039;s first flight will happen as planned in April.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/training-sim\/2015\/03\/17\/kc-46a-first-flight-facing-delay\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Defense News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-17T20:42:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T23:18:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aaron Mehta\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Aaron Mehta\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\n\t    \"@context\": \"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\n\t    \"@graph\": [\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": 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