Can the Air Force say for certain that it will have a replacement tanker in production before the risk of retiring 114 KC-135Es “becomes untenable”? That is the question posed by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) to the service’s top uniformed leader Wednesday. Gen. Michael Moseley explained that USAF planned to distribute the E model crews across the service, upgrading them to R models and enabling the service to generate more R model sorties. Moseley noted that the past and current commanders of US Transportation Command and Air Mobility Command believe that retiring the KC-135Es would only produce a “nine percent degrade in total offload.” And, the Chief of Staff pointed out that the Air Force does not fly the E model tankers in Southwest Asia because they’re “less reliable, … carry less of a load, [because] the engines are such that you can’t lift the weight.”
The U.S. military is sending more fighter jets to the Middle East to step up its war with Iran, adding to what is already the largest buildup of airpower in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. For now, the operation shows little sign of coming to a quick…