The Air Force wants to modernize air refueling, but it’s been a bumpy ride
The US just sent four tankers to Europe. Take an inside look at how these old planes work—and how the tech underpinning the fleet is slowly evolving.
BY ROB VERGER | PUBLISHED MAR 10, 2022 10:13 AM
The first F-22 approaches from behind our KC-10 tanker aircraft, subtly camouflaged and eerily quiet thanks to the tanker’s ambient noise. We’re cruising thousands of feet above the Atlantic, going hundreds of miles per hour, and the F-22—a stealth fighter jet known as the Raptor—slowly closes the gap, sliding up toward a refueling boom that hangs from the rear and bottom of our plane.
The KC-10 tanker is a flying gas station, a cargo aircraft capable of offloading thousands of pounds of fuel into receptacles atop planes like the Raptor. Holed up in a cozy compartment in the tanker’s rear, a human—in this case Sebastian Dewsnap, a member of the Royal Australian Air Force on exchange in the US—watches through a rear-facing window to operate the telescoping delivery system.
This is how the Air Force has handled refueling for decades: with a person like Dewsnap looking out through glass at a thirsty plane. But KC-10s like the one we’re flying for this training mission in November of 2021—and the KC-135s the Pentagon deployed to the EU just this week—are at a point of transition: The KC-10 is set to be retired over the next two years, with the KC-135 flying off into the sunset sometime long thereafter. The intended replacement, called the KC-46, relies on a higher-tech tactic: A remote-vision solution will replace Dewsnap’s rear window. Someday, tankers like this could do away with boom operators entirely in favor of partially, or fully, robotic systems.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/inside-air-force-refueling-mission-kc-10-tanker/
