Given that the Air Force will be operating 179 KC-46As and have an organic logistics support system for them in place when it’s time to buy the next installment of tankers, does the KC-46 have an inside track for the follow-on buy? It’s way too early to say, according to Maj. Gen. John Thompson, the Air Force’s tanker program executive officer, in an Oct. 28 interview. The KC-Y requirements process has just begun, and still to be determined is just how much the Air Force will invest in an organic KC-46 logistics train, or whether to depend on the existing worldwide commercial support network for the Boeing 767, on which the KC-46 is based. “It all depends on the requirements,” said Thompson. “I can foresee a situation where the [KC-Y] requirements are drastically different. But I can also foresee a situation where the requirements are very similar,” he said. Boeing is scheduled to deliver 179 KC-46s by 2027; to keep recapping the 1950s-vintage KC-135s without a break will mean the KC-Y needs to get going around 2025. That timing may be problematic, though: by then, the Air Force will also be starting Long Range Strike Bomber production and will still be only halfway to filling out its F-35 strike fighter fleet.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
