Two dozen KC-135 crew members from multiple bases received the Distinguished Flying Cross for refueling the fighters that shot down 80 Iranian drones and missiles bound for Israel on April 13.
aerial refueling
The last KC-10 refueling tanker in the Air Force inventory flew its last flight on Sept. 26 after an emotional farewell ceremony where KC-10 crew members past and present said their good-byes at Travis Air Force Base, Calif.
A KC-46 touched down at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., on July 1 after a record 45-hour nonstop flight around the world. The mission, called Project Magellan, saw the two crews aboard test their limits as they refueled Air Force jets around the planet.
After years of fits and starts, the KC-46's Wing Aerial Refueling Pods started operational testing last month out of McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., giving the Pegasus the ability to refuel two aircraft at the same time. McConnell is the first operational base to get the ...
At 247 feet long and with a 222-foot wingspan, the C-5M Super Galaxy is the largest aircraft in the U.S. military—and, as a crew at Travis Air Force Base recently proved in the skies over northern California and Oregon, America’s largest flying gas station.
What is now officially known as the KC-135 Tanker Recapitalization Program—formerly called KC-Y or the “bridge tanker”—should clear the Pentagon’s joint requirements process by the end of September, at which time the Air Force will issue a Request for Information to industry for potential solutions, ...
On the 100th anniversary of the first aerial refueling mission, the Air Force sought to highlight the behind-the-scenes efforts of some of its most essential planes with Operation Centennial Contact. More than 150 tankers from 26 installations were involved in large-scale flyovers across the country.
The 128th Air Refueling Wing of the Wisconsin Air National Guard helped scores of aircraft get across the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Air Defender 23 in Europe, a “monumental feat,” one officer said.
As near-peer adversaries have increased their reach and lethality, the U.S. Air Force is accelerating the tanker fleet recapitalization and aggressively pulling forward the Next Generation Aerial Refueling System (NGAS) to meet the threat. Globally operating the KC-46A has advanced mission...
As the Air Force embarks on what is likely to be a lengthy process of developing the Next Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS) to help recapitalize its aerial refueling fleet, the service is placing more and more of a “premium on survivability” for future tankers, ...
The Air Force’s nascent KC-Z program, aimed at developing a next-generation family of systems for aerial refueling, will look to launch its analysis-of-alternatives study in 2024, years earlier than originally planned. Originally, the analysis of alternatives for the KC-Z was set for “maybe in the ...
The seven subpanels of the House Armed Services Committee are set to begin marking up their respective portions of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act in the next few days, and one is considering letting the Air Force make cuts to its tanker and C-130 ...