Though Air Mobility Command is already looking ahead to a stealthy penetrating tanker in the 2035 timeframe, a new airlifter to replace the C-17 will be longer in coming, AMC chief Gen. Carlton Everhart told reporters at ASC16. The C-17, he said, has a lot of life left in it, though fleet improvements will likely come in the form of a new head-up display, a new oxygen generating system and putting extended range fuel tanks on those C-17s that don’t already have them. Everhart said the C-17 “drinks a lot of gas” and may benefit from a re-engining at some point, and he expects there will be a service life extension program, but it will probably be done incrementally when the jets come in for depot maintenance. Applying “fleet dynamics”—swapping aircraft out of high-corrosion environments like the Pacific and making sure the fleet ages evenly by tail number—will buy as much as ten years of service life, Everhart said. The C-17 could be a “60-80-year airplane,” Everhart said. Asked about when a “C-X” might be in the offing, he suggested that something smaller and stealthy might come sooner.
New approaches to testing Space Force equipment are speeding up delivery to operators, but the service needs more testers and perhaps its own space-focused test center, officials said April 1. Those are key pieces of the fledgling force’s testing methods and future moves that will keep new technology flowing into…