USAF walks back tanker forecast: ‘We don’t know what our strategy is’
As Boeing KC-46 deliveries resume, officials mull how many more—if any—to order.
AUDREY DECKER | AUGUST 1, 2023
AIR FORCE INDUSTRY LOGISTICS
DAYTON, Ohio—Several months after the Air Force’s top weapons buyer said the service would likely buy 75 additional KC-46 tankers, the service’s deputy program manager for mobility aircraft says not so fast.
It “doesn't matter what any person—senior leader or otherwise—has said. We don't know what our acquisition strategy is,” Scott Boyd said Monday at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference here. He said the service will likely settle on a plan by next June.
The Air Force needs more tankers to serve the fleet until its next-gen aerial refueler, or NGAS, arrives in the middle of next decade. But just how many depends on the murky question of when NGAS will actually arrive.
“If we ended up getting 2035 wrong, then perhaps we got the quantity of what we needed wrong. That's everyone's concern: the Air Force has that same concern, Congress has that concern, industry certainly has that concern,” Boyd said.
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2023/08/usaf-walks-back-tanker-prediction-we-dont-know-what-our-strategy/389006/