C-17 Refuels Off a Commercial Tanker for First Time in AMC History
April 23, 2025 | By Greg Hadley
Air Mobility Command, responsible for the Air Force’s airlift and tanker fleets, got some refueling help of its own from a commercial provider for the first time earlier this month.
The milestone came when a KDC-10 tanker owned by Omega Air Refueling passed fuel onto a C-17 over California on April 10. The airlifter came from the 62nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which said in an April 23 release that it used a Pacific Air Forces contract to task the mission.
PACAF has utilized Omega before—a KDC-10 refueled F-15, F-16, and F-22 fighters over the Pacific in November 2023, followed by a B-52 bomber and MC-130J special ops aircraft in March 2024.
But this latest mission to refuel a C-17 was significant “because it marked the first instance of contracted air refueling of an Air Mobility Command aircraft,” Pete Vanagas, Omega’s director of U.S. Air Force business development, said in a statement.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/c-17-refuels-off-commercial-tanker-amc/
