The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) wants to hear from U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on the possibilities for commercial air refuelers to provide a wartime surge capacity for the service’s fleet of Boeing [BA] KC-135, KC-10, and KC-46A Pegasus tankers.
“The committee continues to recognize the stresses on the Air Force’s tanker refueling fleet and annual unmet aerial refueling requirements,” according to an en bloc amendment to H.R. 2670 by freshman Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.), a member of the HASC seapower and projection forces subcommittee.
“”United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) considers the commercial industry an important partnership providing an important wartime surge and daily augmentation to its trucks, airlift/aeromedical, and railcars,” per Alford’s amendment. “Despite multiple studies conducted by the United States Government Accountability Office, the United States Air Force and demand from Major Command operational units for more air refueling capacity, USTRANSCOM still maintains zero domestic aerial refueling partners to meet the Department of Defense’s wartime Air Refueling needs and hours of training and readiness requirements.”
The Air Force requests about $3 billion in fiscal 2024 for 15 KC-46A and may decide this summer on a buy of up to 75 tankers to fill the gap between the planned fielding of the 179th and final KC-46A in 2029 and the fielding of the Next-Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS) in the mid-to-late 2030s (Defense Daily, Apr. 6).
The service wants to conduct an Analysis of Alternatives on NGAS and has decided to end the KC-Y program for buying 150 commercial tankers as a bridge to NGAS–formerly known as KC-Z.
The “lack of a commercial surge and training outlet for such a critical [tanking] capability has prompted previous USTRANSCOM Commanders to state before the committee that lack of aerial refueling requirements has been their number one readiness concern,” per Alford’s amendment. “Three decades later, the Air Force’s tanker refueling fleet remains the only Department of Defense capability without commercial augmentation to support the nation’s wartime surge, mobilization, sustainment, and peacetime training demands.”
The Alford amendment would direct Kendall to brief HASC by Dec. 1 to outline a “potential increase in capability by divestment of air refueling aircraft from the boneyard/demilitarization to the original equipment manufacturer via the excess defense article (EDA) process for the purpose of providing aircraft to a qualified and certified commercial aerial refueling provider or providers.”
“The committee believes that doing so would save the Air Force costs associated with divestment and demilitarization, while concurrently establishing a domestic, commercial aerial refueling augmentation and increasing aerial refueling capacity to increase training, readiness, and wartime surge,” according to the amendment.