The KC-46 is in the news again. I can’t think of a better example of how not to buy an aircraft.
This mess goes back to 2002 when the Air Force announced it was going to lease 100 modified 767’s from Boeing. People actually went to prison over that one.
The problem is, the military normally doesn’t lease aircraft and the whole idea sounded silly. To me it sounded like a big government giveaway to Boeing.
Why do they want a new tanker? Well, some of the current ones are getting pretty old. The good old KC-135 goes back to the late 1950’s and came in three flavors:
The original KC-135A had turbojet (J-57) engines and was an under-powered death trap.
The KC-135E was the “in between” model. It had small turbofans (TF-33) and was operated by the Air National Guard.
The KC-135R started life as an A model but was re-engined with large CFM-56 turbofans. I logged several thousand hours in these as both an Aircraft Commander and an instructor.
The 135 is a fairly simple, reliable aircraft but it does have a few drawbacks. It can’t carry a lot of cargo because of its skinny fuselage and plywood cargo floor. It’s lacking in any kind of electronic warning gear or countermeasures.
The main problem is it’s just old. We had some 1956 models in my Air National Guard unit. Granted they still have some years left in them, but as aircraft age maintenance costs tend to go up and reliability tends to go down.
As a replacement the 767 seems like a decent choice. It has about the same ramp “footprint” as a KC-135 but is much more capable. I currently fly the 767 and can’t really say anything bad about it.
The military normally uses a competitive bidding system to purchase aircraft. Since Boeing bought McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, there is only a single manufacturer of large aircraft in the United States.
In fact, worldwide Boeing and Airbus currently have a duopoly on large aircraft. They still build some in Russia, but nobody buys them. I just don’t see us buying military aircraft from the Russians. Well OK, maybe under the current administration…
Now when we spend billions of the taxpayer’s dollars, we at least like to funnel some of that back to American companies. Granted it’s not the most efficient jobs program by a long shot, but at least it’s something. We have purchased a few foreign designs in the past (T-45 Goshawk, B-57 Canberra) but we had US companies build them under license.
Enter Airbus. After the initial KC-767 boondoggle, in 2006 the Department of Defense asked for bids on a new tanker. Airbus proposed the KC-45, which would be a tanker version of the A330. Several countries already operate A330 tankers, although the USAF version would require the addition of a refueling boom. The planes were to have been built by Northrop-Grumman in Alabama.
Long story short, the Air Force picks the KC-45, Boeing complains, the KC-45 gets cancelled and we’re back to square one. Except it’s now sometime around 2011.
After revising their requirements, there is a second competition. To nobody’s surprise Boeing gets awarded the contract for what will be the KC-46. They might as well have just put “Built by Boeing” in the requirements.
I’m told this is not the first time they’ve changed the requirements to favor the company they already want to build it. Kind of like how Corporate HR will sometimes list a job because they have to but they already have a candidate in mind.
The KC-46 will be called the “Pegasus”. I don’t know why they even bother naming these things. I can assure you that nobody outside of Boeing and the Pentagon will ever call it a “Pegasus”. The crews will give it a name that will actually stick.
Now I have no issues with the 767, it’s a great jet. Is it better than an A330? I don’t know. I’ve never flown an A330. People that fly it tell me it’s also a great jet.
I find it humorous that one of Boeing’s selling points was the fact that the manual flight controls on the 767 allow for “unrestricted maneuverability to avoid threats anywhere in the flight envelope”.
Okaaaaaaaay. Look, if I’m ever maneuvering against a threat in a tanker something has gone horribly wrong somewhere. I don’t think the SU-27 pilot is going to be all that impressed by my awesome 2 G turn capability and .84 mach top speed.
So sixteen years later it’s 2018 and we still don’t have a new tanker. The Air Force is saying it may not accept delivery of the new aircraft unless certain flaws are fixed.
First lets talk about the good stuff.
The 767 based tanker should be an improvement over the KC-135 in just about every way. More offload capability, able to carry more cargo and passengers, modern electronics plus greater efficiency and reliability.
It will be able to do boom-receptacle as well as probe-and-drogue refueling on the same mission (although probably not at the same time for safety reasons). The KC-135 could only do one or the other. They could stick a short hose and drogue on the end of our boom, but then we lost the ability to refuel using the boom.
Finally it will be able to air refuel from another tanker. The KC-10 can do this, but only a small handful of KC-135’s were ever given this capability. This can be a big deal operationally. If you look at the “Black Buck” missions flown by the RAF during the Falklands War, they relied heavily on tankers refueling other tankers.
Now the bad.
In typical fashion they’ve tried to make the KC-46 more complicated than it needs to be. Rather than have the Boom Operator look through a window in the back, like a KC-135 or KC-10, it’s done from the cockpit via remote control. So the Boom Operator is doing their job via camera, which I can’t imagine gives them much depth perception.
In certain light conditions, the Boom Operator has trouble seeing and there have been instances of the refueling boom scraping the top of the receiver aircraft. This can be really bad if the receiver is a stealth aircraft like a B-2 or F-22. Scrape off some of the radar absorbing material and it’s no longer a stealth aircraft.
There is also some question as to how well this is all EMP shielded. Since one of the main missions of a tanker is refueling bombers in a nuclear scenario, that kind of has to work. Even though we all hope they never have to do it for real.
If that wasn’t bad enough, they’re already working on completely automating the boom and getting rid of the Boom Operator altogether. I’m sure the “Yay! Automate everything!” crowd is clapping their hands already.
Now I realize that I’m just an unfrozen caveman B-52 pilot, but that sounds like a solution in search of a problem to me.
(How old am I? I’m “I don’t recognize the songs Weird Al is parodying any more.” years old.)
Having been on both sides of the air refueling equation, I can tell you that a good Boom Operator can make your life a whole lot easier back there. Just call me a Luddite, but I don’t really trust R2D2 to plug me.
Now they’ve actually tested an automated boom, and apparently it works, at least in a test environment.
This is something that has to work all the time, however. If the boom doesn’t work reliably, there’s no point in having a large, expensive airplane attached to it.
Seems like a lot of money and effort to replace one enlisted crew member. An active duty Boom Operator is probably an E-4 or E-5 making less than $35,000/year.
So, fourteen years down the road and we still don’t have any operational KC-46’s at something like $174 million a pop. And we won’t until they get the “boom scraping” problem sorted out. Or they could have just put a window in, but what do I know?