Originally Posted by
Two's in
Purely in the interests of accuracy, they have managed to get 1,271 Boeing 767s working "properly", what they haven't been able to do is design and build a Remote Vision System (RVS) that works on the KC-46. RVS 2.0 is out there and being tested, but after nearly a decade of broken promises and piss-poor performance, the Air Force is going to take a lot of persuading the fix is in. The RVS 2.0 program has already had a 19 month slip to Military Flight Release, so it's not an auspicious start. Publicly quoted numbers state that Boeing charged the DOD $4.9B (with a B) for the KC-46 Program, and have subsequently paid an additional $5B from internal funds to fux the fix-up. Not exactly business leading numbers.
RVS is dumb as dirt. Boom operators using natural vision have done a great, low risk job for over half a century. RVS is a bad solution to a non-problem. Barring return to using natural, full color, 3D vision, autonomous boom operation would be a better path than RVS.