http://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/...s-first-kc-46/
Here’s when the US Air Force will get its first KC-46 tanker
WASHINGTON — After months of public — and sometimes contentious — disagreements, Boeing and the U.S. Air Force have finally settled on an October delivery date for the first KC-46 tanker.
“As a result of months of collaboration, the Air Force and Boeing KC-46A teams have reached an agreed joint program schedule to get to the first 18 aircraft deliveries. This includes the expectation the first KC-46A aircraft acceptance and delivery will occur in October 2018, with the remaining 17 aircraft delivered by April 2019,” Air Force Under Secretary Matt Donovan said in a statement. “While the KC-46A flight test program is nearly complete, significant work remains. The Air Force is looking forward to KC-46A first delivery and will continue to work with Boeing on opportunities to expedite the program.”
The new schedule appears to be a compromise between Boeing and the Air Force’s estimated timelines. For months,
Boeing has held that it could deliver its first KC-46 this summer, with a total of 18 tankers delivered this year. The Air Force projections
have been much more pessimistic, with first delivery at the end of the year, and 18 delivered by spring.
While it’s clear that Boeing will not meet the required assets available, or RAA, deadline — a contractual obligation to deliver 18 certified tankers and nine refueling pods — whether it will have to pay a penalty for being late is still murky.....
The KC-46 currently has
three outstanding category-1 deficiencies, the designation given to urgent technical problems with no workaround in place.
Two of the deficiencies revolve around the system’s remote vision system, manufactured by Rockwell Collins..... Boeing believes it can solve both problems with a software fix that retunes the camera system to increase visibility and to make it more intuitive for operators to change the camera settings. That fix is currently being tested with the hope that the deficiencies will be downgraded or completely eliminated in the next few months...... Boeing’s expectation is that if they do not resolve the remote visioning system deficiencies, the Air Force will not accept the KC-46 this fall.
It’s unclear, however, whether the final category-1 deficiency will be fixed before first delivery. The issue involves a mechanical lock on the centerline drogue system, which unintentionally unlocks in certain conditions. Boeing believes it can rectify the problem through a software fix but needs more flight test data to do so. “It’s just [a matter of] when are we going to fix it,” Gibbons said in May. “We and the Air Force have agreed … for a while that the right time to do that is after we gather sufficient flight test information from some of these drogue contacts, go in and update the software, and then we’ll roll it in through the summer and test it out again.”