Boeing Still Tracking Toward First KC-46A Delivery This Year
Boeing is forging ahead with KC-46 Pegasus FAA airworthiness certification in the hopes of getting the aircraft certified for delivery to the U.S. Air Force by year’s end.
The company is on the hook to deliver 18 combat-ready aircraft to the service’s first operational and training bases by “early 2018,” a revised timeline set down by the government in late 2016 when the program entered low-rate initial production.
The program is running about one year behind its original delivery schedule because of various technical setbacks during development. Boeing continued building tankers on its own dime at the planned rate and now has six test aircraft built and flying, plus 20 more in various stages of assembly. But the Air Force won’t accept any deliveries of aircraft before the airworthiness certification process is complete.
Mike Gibbon, Boeing’s KC-46 vice president and program manager, says he is confident the aircraft will be certified by year’s end, and at that point Boeing will deliver the aircraft as fast as the Air Force can accept them.