The KC-46A system program office at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio said that it is awaiting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification of commercial cameras on the Boeing [BA] tanker’s Remote Vision System 2.0 (RVS 2.0) to finish the latter’s Critical Design Review (CDR).
A December 2022 Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) released this month by DoD said that “CDR closure is pending resolution of one remaining critical action item: Developing a jointly agreed-to plan for airworthiness certification of the commercial-off-the-shelf cameras.”
“The team is continuing to evaluate methods to achieve certification and expects to close CDR in early 2QCY23,” the SAR said. The second quarter ended in June, yet the KC-46A system program office (SPO) said that the delay in CDR closure will not affect the program’s plans to field RVS 2.0 by the end of 2025.
The tanker’s original RVS had five Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) “Atom” cameras made by France-based Sofradir–now part of Lynred. RVS 2.0 is to replace the two Sofradir LWIR boom sensor cameras for new boom sensor LWIR cameras by Oregon-based Sierra Olympic Technologies, Inc.
“CDR closure is pending a plan for FAA airworthiness certification of the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) cameras, the final critical action item,” the KC-46A SPO said in an Oct. 16 email through the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center press office. “The team expects to close CDR in 4QCY23 after the FAA certification plan is accepted. Holding CDR open until closure of this last action item has not caused any change or delay in the overall RVS 2.0 development completion date of 4QCY25, which was re-baselined in fall 2022.”
The Air Force has said that it foresees fielding RVS 2.0 for the KC-46A in October 2025 at the start of fiscal 2026–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.
The Air Force’s planned fiscal 2026 RVS 2.0 fielding “is later than we would prefer,” Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said in April. “Having said that, Air Mobility Command has set the parameters under which the platform is able to operate today, and they are successfully refueling aircraft with the system they are currently using.”
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.