USAF Chief Just Said Next Air Refueling Tanker May Fly In Space… Huh?
The puzzling comment comes at a time when the USAF is doing anything it can to keep its grasp on space-based capabilities.
By Tyler RogowayJanuary 29, 2019
I have long highlighted the glaring need for a low-observable (stealthy) tanker to support the thousands of relatively short-ranged stealth fighters the USAF will continue to purchase in through coming decades—aircraft that are expected to take on peer states with high-end anti-access capabilities, like China. You can read the entire case for such a platform in this past feature of mine. Many laughed off the idea when that piece was published, but it has since become a very real concept within the flying force. Now the USAF's Chief Of Staff, General David Goldfein, has poured a bit of cold water on the idea, while at the same time positing a far more exotic if not outright puzzling one—a tanker that flies in low earth orbit.
What?
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26216/usaf-chief-just-said-next-air-refueling-tanker-may-fly-in-low-earth-orbit-huh
