https://www.defensenews.com/breaking...ll-years-away/
Boeing delivers first KC-46, but fixes to technical problems still years away
WASHINGTON — After
more than a year of delays, the U.S. Air Force
took hold of its first KC-46 tanker on Jan. 10, but it will take several years for the service and manufacturer Boeing to
reconcile major technical problems, and the company will not be receiving the full amount of money due upon delivery.
The agreement, finalized after
months of sometimes public and contentious discussions, allows McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas to receive the KC-46 as early as this month, with more set to follow, said Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Hope Cronin. However, the new tankers will arrive with several outstanding category-1 deficiencies, the term used by the military to describe the most serious level of technical problems.
That may sound like a blow to the Air Force, whose leaders had previously implied that all category-1 deficiencies must be fixed before the service begins accepting the tankers. However, service leaders believe the Air Force retains significant financial leverage, even as Boeing delivers the KC-46 aircraft, and the service sees it as vital that Air Mobility Command be able to begin training pilots and boom operators to use the tankers even as technical problems are being corrected......
Perhaps more importantly, the Air Force
holds a significant trump card in its hand. According to the terms of its fixed-price contract with Boeing, the service can withhold up to $28 million per aircraft upon delivery — and the Air Force official said the service intends to keep that amount until it sees a good faith effort by Boeing to fix deficiencies. That means Boeing could miss out on $1.5 billion if the maximum withholding is applied to all 52 aircraft on contract.
“That is not something that legitimately can be contested by Boeing. That is purely a government decision until the airplane is brought up to specification,” the official said..........
Two key problems
Before the Air Force would accept the first KC-46, Boeing and the service first had to come to terms on the aircraft’s remote vision system, or RVS, the most significant technical hurdle that had bogged down talks between the parties. In short, Boeing has agreed to embark on a redesign effort for the Rockwell Collins-designed RVS that will involve both hardware and software changes. The Air Force believes it will take three to four years to develop a fully functioning RVS, and Boeing has agreed to fix it at its own expense, Cronin said.......
However, the Air Force also made key concessions. Namely, it will have to pay for another fix using taxpayer money.
During tests, the Air Force found that certain aircraft — most often, the A-10 Warthog — had trouble generating the necessary thrust to push into the boom for refueling. Boeing presented a boom design to the government at Milestone C that set the boom resistance to the international standard of about 1,400 pounds, which the government accepted, the Air Force official said. The problem is that to refuel the A-10, the boom must have a much lower threshold of thrust resistance, around 650 pounds.
Because the Air Force is asking for a change in requirements, it has agreed to fund the additional work — though it is still working out how much it will cost for the redesign work and retrofits, the official said. That redesign and manufacturing process will probably take about two years.....