Yet more delays probable
Boeing’s KC-46A aerial refueling tanker program is facing another delay—of at least six months—due to technical and supply chain problems.
This recent delay may require the program to be restructured or funding to be cut, either by Congress or the Pentagon, according to a Senate aide. “Someone will have to be the bad guy,” he says. Boeing was scheduled to deliver 18 KC-46A tankers by August 2017 and has been conducting testing with three aircraft. But refueling trials on a C-17 revealed a stability issue with the boom that passes fuel between aircraft. The best chance of a solution appears to be with software fixes to the flight control surfaces on the fly-by-wire controlled boom. But a hardware solution has not been ruled out. And problems with the supply chain could delay delivery of the full set of 15 aircraft into 2018.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, which approved a draft of its fiscal 2017 defense spending bill May 26, fully supports President Barack Obama’s $2.9 billion request for the program to buy 15 tankers. But a report on the bill expresses lawmakers’ concerns about the program’s future.
For starters, 2017 was supposed to be the first year of full-rate production, with 15 aircraft, the report says. But the milestone C decision to start full production has been delayed over the course of the program, so the number of aircraft stayed the same but is now considered low-rate production, according to the report. The KC-46A has only finished 20% of its development flight test, the report says, noting the refueling boom difficulties.
The committee points out numerous delays. In addition to a 10-11 month delay to the milestone C decision, initial operational test and evaluation also slipped by 11 months, and the delivery of the first aircraft was delayed by nine months. Now, all of the milestones are supposed to occur near delivery dates spelled out in the contract, so the program has very little room to meet its August 2018 commitments.
Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s procurement chief, has pointed to the tanker program as the poster child for fixed-price development, since the program was modifying an existing aircraft. But while the government has been shielded by increased development costs, Boeing is picking up the slack. The company has already taken at least $1.2 billion in pretax charges on the program. That figure could now climb higher.