Some key points
“Every year we don’t get tankers, it is costing us $55 million right off the top,” Lichte says. “When you get out to about 2018 and 2020, what started out as about $2 billion a year to maintain the KC-135 fleet goes all the way up to $6 billion.”
*
AMC planners hope that if the KC-X program takes off and manages to begin delivering aircraft in the next few years, they can begin a cost-avoidance strategy by aggressively retiring KC-135R/Ts; 13 remaining KC-135Es should be retired by the end of the month.
*
“I am really concerned when you start thinking we are only going to buy 12 aircraft per year,” Lichte says. To buy the 179 anticipated KC-X tankers, this would require about 15 years, and at least another 25 years to replace the entire fleet of 415 KC-135R/Ts in the Air Force inventory now.
*
Of the tanker sorties flown today, 83% support refueling operations only. About 2% of them are flown for “dual-use” missions, meaning the tanker provides aerial refueling and delivers cargo (both KC-135s and KC-10s can handle palletized cargo). Airlift-only missions account for about 3% and the remainder are “non-operational” sorties such as training, says Maj. Gen. Mark Solo, commander of the Tanker Airlift Control Center (TACC) here, which manages global airlift and refueling mission planning.
Sign In
September 15, 2009 at 11:03 pm