September 29, 2018
The Ultimate Combo: F-22 and F-35 Stealth Fighters and the KC-Z Stealth Tanker
This is why the Air Force wants a KC-Z stealth tanker that looks like it flew out of a science-fiction film.
by Sebastien Roblin
The United States has devoted billions of dollars to building stealth fighters , stealth bombers, stealth cruise missiles and stealth spy drones . Surely a stealth tanker for refueling aircraft midflight would be an extravagance too much?
However, the concept of a stealth tanker is not as absurd you’d think for one simple reason: the Pentagon’s F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters, which it has made the lynchpin of its twenty-first century air warfare strategy, simply can’t fly far enough.
At first glance, the F-35’s six to eight-hundred-mile range doesn’t seem bad compared to conventional fighters like the Super Hornet or F-16. But those non-stealth designs can carry fuel in in underwing tanks into combat—meanwhile, an F-35 can’t carry those extra lumps of metal under its wings if it wants to preserve its miniscule radar cross-section.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ultimate-combo-f-22-and-f-35-stealth-fighters-and-kc-z-stealth-tanker-32277
