Well, according to the London "Times" today, the KC-46 program involves "converting old 747 airliners into refuelling tankers".

Perhaps that's where it all started to go wrong....................

ORAC, to be fair, most of that new charge is being blamed on COVID related delays and disruptions in the production system.
If true (and I can certainly understand some skepticism), that can hardly be blamed on Boeing. Just more of the worldwide suffering due to Covid.

Further information from The Air Force Magazine/Daily Report:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....779500737c.jpg
Army and Air National Guardsmen from the Oklahoma National Guard disembark a 157th Air Refueling Wing KC-46A Pegasus from Pease Air National Guard Base, N.H., after returning from the District of Columbia to Oklahoma City, Okla., on Jan. 23, 2021. ANG photo by Senior Master Sgt. Andrew M. LaMoreaux.

USAF, Boeing Make Progress on KC-46 Fixes

By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force recently resolved two Category 1 deficiencies on the troubled KC-46 tanker, both problems with the aircraft’s auxiliary power unit that could impact the safety of flight. However, the four remaining issues are still years away from being solved. The KC-46’s APU, located in its tail, developed two serious problems, one with a duct clamp that was moving excessively and another with a drain mast on the outside of the tail that could potentially break loose. As of the end of January, both problems have been addressed, with one closed and the other downgraded to a Category 2, or less serious, deficiency, AMC boss Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost told reporters Feb. 1.

- Ed

Having enjoyed the luxury of 'Rendition Class' travel in the Pegasaurus.....

Travelling in the Voyager is vastly more civilised!

A third class ride always beats a first class walk!

CG

Well, it'd be a 1340 mile walk, so I guess a couple of hours in a windowless Pegasaurus would indeed be preferable, particularly at this time of year!

Although they could pick up old Route 66 from St Louis to Oklahoma City, I guess. Which would be nice.

"Having enjoyed the luxury of 'Rendition Class' travel in the Pegasaurus....."

H​​​​​hey getting out of Oklahoma at someone else's expense is GOOD no matter what way you travel....................

News from Boeing's 'mediaroom'
airsound

JASDF Kc-46 flies
 

JASDF KC-46 makes its first flight

https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-re...ts?item=130825

Oh no! Not another problem for the much troubled Pagasus? It's powered by P&W 4062 engines, part of the same 4000 series as the Denver UAL 777 (P&W4077) and the Belgium Longtail Aviation 747 (P&W4056), both of which recently rained parts on the ground below.

Boeing recommended grounding the P&W 777s, but there's been no mention, as far as I can see, of grounding the P&W 747 or the KC-46.

airsound

Israel has ordered two.

The P & W 4060 series engine is different to the engine fitted to United B777, as it does not have the hollow wide chord blades that are fitted to the larger engine installed on B777. Still a very old design though.

But they get mates rates...................

As esscee notes, you're talking apples and cumquats. The PW4000/94" engine as installed on the 767 and 747-400 has well over 150 million flight hours and has been in-service for over 3 decades. You're going to have the odd failure when you have an engine that has been in-service for those sort of hours. We also don't know what sort of maintenance Longtail was subjecting their engines to - some freight operators are pretty stingy in their maintenance practices.
While there is considerable commonality between the high pressure portions of the various PW4000 models, the low pressure sections are completely different between the 94", 100" (A330), and 112" (777) variants. There is simply no connection between the fan blade failures on the PW4000/112", and the PW4062/94" engine installed on the KC-46, aside from their being designed and built by the same company.

Thanks tdracer - I'm OK on apples, but I'll obviously have to brush up on my cumquat recognition.

airsound

BOEING = Bits Of Engines In Neighbours' Gardens!!

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...dsVINrZjKdLKzU

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....42ebd9f88.jpeg

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e2af8209b.jpeg

Defense News has more news, and is quoting Gen. Ryan Samuelson, who leads the Air Force’s KC-46 cross-functional team, and Air Mobility Command chief Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovosthttps://www.defensenews.com/smr/air-...erations-soon/

airsound

Missed that update. Good to see they are finally passing gas (but not to stealthy airframes and A-10's). Anyone know if they are actually being used much for air to air refueling?

Shit Happens..
 

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021...etized-toilet/

The KC-46 has a messy problem with its palletized toilet

Why on earth did the USAF specify such a primitive system as the ATGL to be delivered in the 21st Century? Surely their passengers deserve better in this day and age?
Joking apart, toilet spillages cause considerable corrosion which is highly dangerous in pressurised aircraft.

All Airbus tanker transport aircraft have normal airline standard facilities.....as well as proper seats and cabin windows. Why on earth doesn't the KC-46A?

I guess the primary difference is that the KC-46 has limited to no underfloor cargo availability given the IFR tanks are there so they have built a hybrid CF aircraft that uses upstairs for everything hence all on pallets vs. A330 MRTT [KC-30] having full under floor cargo area for cargo and full permanent pax seating upstairs...

Because the USAF specified a cargo aircraft that was capable of doing aerial refueling. Had the A330 been selected, it to would have had to be turned into a freighter - main deck cargo door, cargo handling equipment, etc. While the A330 can carry more underfloor cargo than the KC-46, it would still fall far short of the USAF requirements.
In other words, had Airbus proposed the standard MRTT, it would have been dismissed out of hand for failing to meet the basic, mandatory requirements.

We are impressed by how the KC-46 has been meeting all the requirements so far.

So, you're suggesting that USAF should have altered their requirements to suit what Airbus had?
That's what got the previous contract award thrown out...

I would suggest the contractor over-promised, under-bid, under-delivered, and poorly produced. Bringing shame upon itself and it’s customer’s acquisition prowess.

You mean like the A400M?
No one is immune to that disease...
At the risk of repeating myself for the umpteenth time, the A330 MRTT doesn't meet the mandatory USAF requirements - not even close. It would have required a major development program to come up an A330 derivative that did - with no guarantee that Airbus would have performed much better than the lazy B.

The EADS/Northrop Grumman KC-45A was selected by the USAF as compliant to their then needs only to be torpedoed by the "Buy USA" brigade and now look at the mess. Very late and not yet 100% fit for purpose.

and of course the re-written spec would have been authored to ensure that "the A330 MRTT doesn't meet the new mandatory USAF requirements - not even close".

IG

Why make the comparison with the A400?
It is not a tanker?

The A330 is a developed tanker and is working well.

We all the know the rules for tender were changed for political reasons to ensure Boeing got the contract.
And what a disaster that has been! ( and is on going!)
Politics always interfere and rarely for the better.

A few things about the KC-X award. I'm not talking about the subsequent development in which Boeing and USAF did not exactly cover themselves in glory, just the selection. Keep in mind that this took place during a time when USAF was screwing up contract after contract.

USAF put out certain specs and requirements for KC-X, which included mandatory requirements, and things they'd give extra credit for and things that would be nice but would not receive extra credit (they might count as tie breakers if all else was equal). Keep in mind that the objective was to replace the KC-135, not the KC-10 or a potential future larger tanker.

When Boeing lost to the the KC-45 they looked at the rationale USAF publicly disclosed in justifying the award. Boeing felt the award so egregiously violated the rules that they decided to, unusually for the time, protest the award. What had clearly happened was that USAF had asked for one thing, but when they saw the bids got excited by the extra cargo capacity of the more expensive A330. Instead of doing the right thing and withdrawing the solicitation and coming out with a new one that reflected their new desires, they just cooked the books to award the contact to EADS/Northrop Grumman (no one alleged that that team itself did anything untoward). When the protest got to GAO their decision was that they wouldn't say that Boeing's bid was better or worse, just that by its own criteria and their published description of how the bids would be judged the award couldn't be justified and invited USAF to explain how the award was made. USAF couldn't, so withdrew the award (and had to pay penalties).

Some, though not all, of the problems included: USAF said points for more cargo capacity would only be provided up to a certain amount. However, USAF gave credit beyond what they said. Boeing said that if USAF had disclosed that, they would have bid a tanker based on the 777, which carried even more cargo than the A330. The requirements included the ability to refuel any AAR-capable USAF fixed wing; A330 couldn't do that for at least one a/c, but this was ignored as was the requirement that the new tanker had to be able to operate from any KC-135 base. But to operate a KC-45 from said bases, modifications to the base(s) costing hundreds of millions of $ were required which USAF didn't include in the cost of the EADS/NG bid. Points were to be awarded regarding how many tankers could be parked on a ramp of a specified size. When it was found that more 767 tankers could be parked there (767 was smaller), USAF simply lowered the standard separation required between parked tankers so that the A330 could fit in more a/c (I don't know if Boeing was ever informed of this change). Air Force had a requirement that the winner would assist in setting up a transition for maintenance from the contractor to USAF. EADS/NG said they wouldn't do that; USAF characterized that as an "administrative oversight"- which normally refers to typos or minor mistakes that have no significant effect on the overall bid. There were more...

Again, GAO did Not say which plane was better for USAF, simply that per USAF's own solicitation and announced selection criteria the award could not be sustained.

Work started on a second solicitation, but it was soon seen that it was written in such a way that any problems with the A330 were simply written out of the requirement, and the suspense for response was so unusually short that there was no time to design and propose a KC-777 that wouldn't be judged "high risk". This was so obvious that the solicitation was never formally issued.

On the third try, Boeing said that it would bid a plane based on either the 767 or 777 depending on how much capacity USAF said it wanted. The new criteria were similar to the original, for a smaller KC-135 replacement. Since apparently a larger A330 based craft could not be offered for a price as low as a 767 based one, EADS (NG had dropped out) decided not to go to the expense (they cost tens of millions of $$) of making a bid.

Personally, I think if they had won EADS would have had almost as many problems, because USAF was asking for a lot more than just a 767 or A330 based tanker (this includes A330MRTT).

Thanks, Commando Cody, for that in-depth explanation.

But isn't it a great piece of comic irony that this disaster-prone project is now wallowing in sh1t? I mean, as Beagle quotes I mean, who writes this stuff? Galley-Lavatory - really? Not so much a piece of palletized support as a piece of cr@p, you might think.

airsound

No argument re MRTT, but KC-46, in spite of promises, doesn’t meet the agreed requirements either. The company used to be capable of much better.

The problems of the A400M are not an excuse nor justification for the problems of the KC-46. But both programs are shameful failures in spite of remedial attempts to salvage them and will continue to be embarrassments for years hence.

Who knew that demonstrating and testing new technologies could avoid embarrassing withdrawal problems?

https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-w...143935.article

Should save some KC-135 and KC-10 hours until/if the KC-46 gets fixed !

https://theaviationist.com/2021/06/0...-first-refuel/
David

USAF don`t do `hose-and-probe` refuelling.....

Incorrect - the USAF does it for spec ops CV-22Bs, HH-60G and HH-60W. They also provide it for Allied nations.
A significant number of KC-135s have underwing pods - for instance the KC-135Rs of 100 ARW at RAF Mildenhall.

Salute!

Thank you RAFE, and the special ops folks, as well as the original century attack planes use thed probe. The F-105 could do both.
I really liked the receptacle method, as flying good formation, even in a rainstorm at night, was lots easier than trying to hit the drougue with enuf smash to seat the fuel line.
And that brings up another stoopid thing about the new tanker - the television for the refueling boom! Can't have a real experienced boom-op back there, no, we go high tech with a 3D Tv or whatever and the thing sucks according to the pilots and the old boom operators. Gonna be interesting when the tv system crashes and without a direct view and basic electric/hydraulics to control the boom is not available. Hmmmm..... I refueled a few hundred times in 'nam and later in the Viper and the nuggets just outta pilot training cracked the code and got gas easily.
I am not sure how USAF screwed up the plane, and seems mostly after the procurement and development process was well underway.
The plane I flew that seemed the least bothered by changes from test to production and operational was the Viper, with the SLuf close behind. I'll even award a tie. Sure, we had minor beefs and groans, but went from test to operational in 6 years or so. In my second career I saw the worst of our procurement when the "client" would add new capabilities that were not in the original contract. So Brand X would calmly invoke the "change of scope" clause and demand big $$$ to redo machinery, sfwe and such. So no wonder the purchse price zoomed.

Oh well, I am not happy with the new tanker, but guess we live with the thing.

Gums opines..

So what’s new?

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021...rce-isnt-sure/

What’s a fair price for KC-46 spare parts? The Air Force isn’t sure

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force recently awarded Boeing an $88 million contract for spare parts for Japan’s KC-46 tankers, but service officials confirmed to Defense News on Monday the deal included about $10 million in costs that Air Force leaders investigated and could not determine if they were fair or reasonable.

That finding has led to concerns from Capitol Hill that Boeing is artificially inflating prices to help recoup financial losses incurred during the program’s development stage. Thus far, the company has paid more than $5 billion in cost overruns after winning a fixed-price contract in 2011 worth $4.9 billion.

“They’re trying to recover some of their costs on the back end, and they’re starting to recover their costs basically on some of these spares,” said one government official with knowledge of the contract discussions.

One part in particular now costs 15 times what the Air Force previously paid for it, the official said.

Virginia Rep. Rob Wittman — the top Republican on the House Armed Service’s Committee’s seapower and projection forces subcommittee — is expected to raise the issue during a HASC hearing on the Air Force budget scheduled for June 8.

“We need to change course on this troubled contract by pursuing one of two options,” Wittman said in a statement to Defense News.

“The Air Force could either change the contract incentive structure and actively manage the KC-46A development; or, seek a new path and pursue a non-developmental recompete of the tanker effort,” he said.

“Without pursuing one of these paths, at this point, I am confident that we will continue to see poor performance and an increasingly negative impact as tanker capacity is diminished.”….

With Boeing claimed to be working on the next commercial program NMA would there any chance to prelude it with a tanker like the KC-135 was back then and start from scratch?