[MilCom] USAF Seeks New Tanker

[Airshowfreak5 at aol.com]

by Staff Sgt. C. Todd Lopez 
Air Force Print  News 

3/3/2006  - WASHINGTON  (AFPN) -- The Air Force wants a new refueler 
aircraft,  
something  commercially available now, which can be modified to replace  the 
existing KC-135  Stratotanker fleet. 

That testimony came  from Air Force leaders  associated with the tanker 
replacement program,  Feb. 28 in front of the House  Armed Services Committee 
subcommittee on  projection forces. 

Lt. Gen.  Donald Hoffman, the military deputy  for Air Force acquisition, 
told 
congressional members that his first choice  would be to replace the 
service's  fleet of aging KC-135s with a new  airplane. 

"It should be a new  aircraft, a commercial derivative,  and I think we ought 
to buy one kind," he  said. "The first 100  (should) all look the same." 

The general said he  has no opinion on  who should manufacture the plane, 
only 
that the new aircraft  be the  same as each other in both size and design. 

General Hoffman told   congressional members his second choice for 
recapitalizing the tanker  fleet  would be to modernize the current KC-135 
fleet, which 
involves  converting  existing KC-135E models to KC-135R models. 

But one  problem with  modernizing aircraft already owned by the Air Force is 
 
the rate at which those  planes can be converted. General Hoffman said  the 
Air 
Force can afford to  convert about 15 aircraft a year to the R  model. At 
that 
rate, the Air Force  would be modernizing those aircraft  for some 40 years. 
At the end of that cycle,  some of the aircraft  coming out of the 
modernization 
process would be nearly 80  years old.  

Another problem with modernizing KC-135E aircraft is that  even  with the 
work 
that goes into converting them to KC-135Rs, there are  still  structural 
problems not addressed and some capabilities lacking.  

Various  estimates of the lifespan of the KC-135 project the retire  date out 
as late as  2040, but as the aircraft get older, the Air Force  discovers 
more 
things wrong  with the aircraft. That decreases the  projected lifespan of 
the 
"Eisenhower-era"  tankers, many of which were  built in the late 1950s to 
early 
1960s.  

"These airplanes  continue to get older, and as they get older we  continue 
to 
find  things on them, (so) their time of usefulness will move closer  to us," 
 
said Lt. Gen. Christopher Kelly, Air Mobility Command vice commander.   
"These 
particular airplanes, although they provide us with a good deal  of  service, 
are not modern airplanes and they do not give us the  capability we  would 
want 
to have in modern airplanes." 

As the  aircraft has no  defensive capabilities, its limitations make it  
difficult to use in the desert,  General Kelly said. Additionally, the  Air 
Force 
would like to use its tanker  fleet for work other than  refueling, such as 
moving passengers and cargo. The  Air Force would  also like to offer both 
boom and 
drogue refueling capability  with its  primary tanker fleet, something the 
KC-135 can not now do. 

"We   would like to address those issues in a new acquisition if we were 
allowed  to do  that," General Kelly said. "From an operational point of 
view, the  
increased  capability you'd get from a modern airplane with floors,  doors, 
defensive  systems, the ability to refuel itself and the ability  to provide 
a 
drogue  refueling and a boom refueling to receivers, would  be a better 
investment 
than  just re-engining the E models."