Boeing [BA] said on March 31 that the U.S. Air Force has awarded the company a $184 million Block 1 upgrade contract to install advanced communications on the KC-46A Pegasus.
“Upgrades include line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight communications technologies with antijamming and encryption features,” Boeing said in a statement. “These capabilities will further enhance the data and communications connectivity the KC-46A provides to joint and allied forces for battlespace situational awareness.”
James Burgess, Boeing’s KC-46 program manager, said in the statement that the Block 1 upgrade “demonstrates long-term investment from Boeing and the Air Force and that “the KC-46A is built to integrate cutting-edge capabilities directly into the DNA of the aircraft as the needs of the mission evolve.”
“The KC-46A already offers more secure communications and more data integration than any tanker, giving the crew and fleet situational awareness for real-time decision making,” Boeing said. “By delivering data as well as fuel to the joint force, the KC-46A is transforming the role of the tanker for the 21st century and will continue to expand its battlespace network capabilities, including Advanced Battle Management System [ABMS] integration.”
ABMS is the Air Force component of the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control architecture. For the last several years, Air Force officials have sought to position the Pegasus as relevant in “contested” environments and to remedy technical and supply chain problems.
Last month, Brian West, Boeing’s chief financial officer, said that a “supplier quality issue” with the center fuel tank of the Pegasus will cause a first quarter charge to the program of less than $500 million and will lead to negative margins at Boeing’s Defense, Space and Security segment when the company reports first quarter earnings in April (
Defense Daily, March 22). Boeing has not named the supplier.
Excluding the pending charge, Boeing has absorbed $6.9 billion in extra costs over the life of the KC-46A.
Boeing last reported charges on the KC-46A last October in the company’s third quarter results for 2022. Those charges were due to supply chain constraints, labor instability, and a delay in fielding the Remote Vision System 2.0.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed on the RVS 2.0 redesign of the original RVS on April 2, 2020 to fix faulty RVS depth perception, a shortfall that may lead to scraping of the boom on aircraft being refueled–damage that can be especially perilous for low-observable aircraft, such as the F-22 and F-35 fighters.
Unlike the KC-135 but like the KC-10, the KC-46A, a modified Boeing 767 airliner, also has a hose-and-drogue system to refuel U.S. Navy and NATO planes.
The Air Force has said that it foresees fielding RVS 2.0 for the KC-46A in October 2025–a delay of 19 months (Defense Daily, Oct. 7, 2022). In 2020, the Air Force said that by 2023 it planned to field RVS 2.0, which is to have 4K color cameras, operator stations with larger screens, a laser ranger for refueling aircraft distance measurement and boom assistance augmented reality.
Boeing said on March 31 that it has delivered 69 KC-46As to the Air Force out of a planned buy of 179. In addition, Boeing said that it has delivered two KC-46As to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and is on contract to deliver four KC-46As to the Israel Air Force.