A KC-46 Pegasus lands at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi, in preparation for the Wings Over Columbus 2022 Airshow, March 24, 2022. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jake Jacobsen)
DAYTON, Oh. — The Air Force expects to issue a request for information (RFI) to industry for its next round of tanker procurement around the end of September, a service official said Monday.
The requirements for the tanker buy — dubbed the KC-135 Tanker Recapitalization Program after replacing the now-defunct KC-Y effort — first have to move through the Pentagon’s Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS). That process, according to Scott Boyd, Air Force deputy program manager for mobility aircraft, is expected to wrap up by the end of September.
The RFI will then be released “almost simultaneous[ly],” Boyd said, with Boeing’s KC-46A Pegasus and Lockheed Martin’s LMXT expected to respond.
Air Force officials such as Secretary Frank Kendall and acquisition chief Andrew Hunter have previously suggested the service may skip a competition for the next round of tankers and continue buying the Pegasus. Despite those indications, Boyd said an acquisition strategy still isn’t clear.
“We have yet to determine that — doesn’t matter what any person, senior leader or otherwise, has said. We don’t know what our acquisition strategy is,” he stated during a media roundtable here at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference hosted by Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
“We’ve engaged with Congress on that as well, to try to make it clear to them we still don’t know what our strategy is,” he added. Some members of Congress have previously pushed for a competition for the tanker buy.
A final acquisition strategy is then expected “around the third quarter of fiscal year 2024,” according to Boyd.
As the Air Force eyes accelerating a buy for a next-gen tanker, Lockheed is betting that the service’s plans to field it will take longer than the current 2035 target date. In that case, the Air Force would require more tankers to continue recapitalizing its refueling fleet, which would better position Lockheed to compete for the KC-135 recap effort.
“We still have to do the same process of market research, evaluating feedback from industry, completing the business case analysis, all of those activities will happen regardless,” Boyd said when asked about previous comments from senior officials that suggested a sole-source decision to Boeing for continued KC-46A procurement is in the cards.
“I think what you’re hearing from individuals like Hon. Hunter and Hon. Kendall is a recognition that the requirements that went into the JCIDS process are not revolutionary… And so when they recognize that, I think that sort of helps influence how they talk about the program, that it can be potentially satisfied by the [KC-]46.
“But we still have to do our due diligence. It’s always been that way,” he added. “I’ve honestly not felt pressure from Congress or from within the Air Force to do anything different than what we were already doing.”
