KC-??
 

Here we go again. Not a KC-X/Y/Z tanker - the KC-46 is the X/Y airframe to replace the current 135 fleet and the Z is a strategic KC-10 tanker replacement in the 777 size class.

I can understand the wish to have atankrr to allow the F-35A to actual get within reach of any targets in the Pacific theatre - but on top of the escalating costs of that program, and the existing wish list of B-21 fleet and escorting PCA fighter, where is the money tree supposed to come from?

Air Mobility Command head calls for more survivable tanker fleet

Sounds a bit like Dale Brown's B52 mother ship or even earlier bomber mounted fighters like the Gnat.

I always thought that a Victor tanker fitted with a Blue Vixen nose and 20 AMRAAMs would have been an interesting idea, what with all the performance advantages it had over the more typical civilian aircraft types.

But then the "flying battleship" concept has been talked about a lot, but ultimately never found to be practical, except for the Old Dog of course (Day Of The Cheetah was more my cup of tea).

IIRC Northrop did a concept for one. Basic shape like a P-38/Vixen with twin booms.

Each boom was unpressurised with integrated fuel tanks plus a flying boom and hose system, remotely controlled from the cockpit. Carbon composite and contoured for stealth.

The front section with cockpit and engines etc looked like a modified B-2 with a pressurised 2 man crew capsule with individual ejector seats and the copilot with a swing out AAR console.

No size given, but if for penetration with say a 4 ship package, I'd imagine somewhere between sized F-111 and KC-135.

Interesting - that defeated my Google skills, I couldn't find a design drawing of it.

I believe that Boeing once proposed something similar based on a 747 with an internal weapons bay, not sure about the refueling aspect.

Gawd, think I threw that book on the floor when the took the heavily damaged Cheetah for a fly-by to salute for their departing hero the day after their mission. Not the only time I rolled my eyes with a Brown book, he usually had some good ideas but did not know when to stop....


I digress, the desire for more survivable and networked tankers seems to be building. Think those miles of cables in the KC-46 will come in handy as an interim step- it's really is becoming more than just passing gas....

That's one of the intriguing things. The concept was published and advertised for a couple of months, then vanished - and every mention of it then vanished. I could have imagined it of course, but I doubt it.....

Fonsini, don't know if it's what you're thinking of, but back in the early 1980s, Boeing proposed a 747 cruise missile launcher. It was basically a 747-200F, with the cockpit isolated from the cargo bay such that they could depressurize the main deck while keeping the flight deck pressurized. There would be a large cargo door that could be opened in flight, and a bunch of rotary cruise missile launchers would rotate around the cargo bay - spitting out ~10 cruise missiles per launcher before rotating the next rotary launcher into position (120 missiles per 747 IIRC). The idea was to have a fleet of these 747 missile launchers that could loiter outside Soviet air defense range, then launch several thousand cruise missiles in minutes, overwhelming the Soviet air defenses.
The KC-46 has a whole lot of bumps and blisters unrelated to the aerial refueling task - presumably they incorporate self defense measures of some sort (I know a bit about that part but can't talk about it for obvious reasons).
My first thought regarding a stealth KC-? is they'd be looking at ~$20 billion development program before they ever produced a production tanker. That's a whole lot of money for some very questionable benefit (serious question, has a USAF or NATO tanker ever been successfully attacked while performing an aerial refueling mission?)

tdracer - that was indeed the one. I'm sure I saw it featured in Flight International sometime back in that era.

Pontius - thanks for the assist.

Sounds like KC-Z will cost around $1B each by the time they finish all the gold plating.


Wonder how long they can keep the KC135 going after the program is canceled for busting
the budget ?

Here you go,

CMCA

Looks like an oversized Gatling gun with cruise missiles.

Could be reconsidered in today's world...

Imagegear

Some further thoughts on the KC-Z idea:

https://eamonh.wordpress.com/2017/03...ivable-tanker/

Boeing's Blended wing design

Boeing: Blended Wing Body Back to the Tunnel

X47B was built in the UK

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/...-090-DFRC.html

https://www.airforcemag.com/after-kc...bridge-tanker/

After KC-46, USAF Looks Ahead to ‘Bridge Tanker’

The Air Force is moving forward with its “bridge tanker” project—the air-refueling aircraft acquisition formerly known as “KC-Y”—in a “full and open competition” to replace the KC-135 Stratotanker fleet. It is a stepping stone to a more futuristic tanker, Air Mobility Command boss Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost said Oct. 27. This particular tanker would bridge the gap in capabilities offered by the 179 Boeing KC-46s currently being delivered and a later tanker known as “KC-Z.”

Speaking at the Airlift/Tanker Association’s virtual conference, Van Ovost distinguished between the bridge tanker, ongoing studies of fee-for-service commercial tanking to bolster the military’s capacity, and the still-undefined KC-Z program. “The Secretary of the Air Force has committed to a continuous recapitalization of tanker aircraft,” Van Ovost said. “We’re going to have a bridge tanker—we’ll have a full and open competition—on an aircraft to continue to recapitalize … the KC-135.”

Stratotankers will be 70 years old when the Air Force receives its last KC-46, and maintaining the older tankers is getting too expensive, she said. “The longer we keep” the KC-135, she said, “the higher sustainment costs are going to be.”

This new tanker will be a “non-developmental” program, meaning it will be based on an existing, proven aircraft, according to an Air Mobility Command spokesperson. The Air Force is defining which capabilities it needs in its next tanker and how it will “immediately follow the existing KC-46A delivery timeline,” she said.

She did not say when the tanker competition will unfold. Industry officials have estimated that if the Air Force wants production of the aircraft to closely follow behind that of the KC-46, which is supposed to end around 2027, the service will need at least a five-year head start. That means initial funding for a bridge tanker may appear in the fiscal 2022 budget request now being crafted.

Only two tankers are mature enough for a competition of this kind: the KC-46 and the Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport, which lost out to the KC-46 in the Air Force’s previous tanker contest in 2011. Boeing is expected to offer its KC-46 for the next competition as well, despite the program’s ongoing troubles. Lockheed Martin has teamed with Airbus to offer a variant of the A330 when the Air Force issues its request for proposals....

Michele A. Evans, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics vice president, told Air Force Magazine in September that the company expected the Air Force to issue a request for information by the end of December for the bridge tanker.

If the Lockheed-Airbus team’s A330 MRTT variant earns an Air Force contract, the work would be done in Marietta, Ga., in a space that has hosted C-5 and C-130 work. Evans said USAF has “made it clear they want to leverage commercial variants” for future tanker acquisitions.

When the Air Force chose the KC-46, it was partially because that jet is smaller than the A330. Its size allows for a larger buy and gives the Air Force more flexibility in spreading them around to airfields with smaller ramps and runways.

Service officials have said, however, that AMC is still interested in a large aircraft like the KC-10 that is headed for retirement. Bigger aircraft let fighter squadrons “self-deploy” alongside a tanker, ground crew and ground equipment in a single package, they argue.

What they need is a (relatively) cheap and simple aircraft they can afford to get into service in less than 5 years and not cost a lot.

Spending money on something they seem to think will be near r the front line will just stretch costs and development time so they'll finish up with a disaster. Those KC-135's won't go on forever - and there's always a chance some fatal fleet-wide flaw (as with the the RAF Valliant's way back) crops up and the whole fleet has to be grounded.

Jeez - just buy a lot of grounded 787's and fit probe and drogue tanks - nowhere near optimum but do-able

Well no. Some very senior Boeing suit announced many years ago that the 787 "Does not have an appropriate configuration for a tanker" - whatever that might mean...

Whether that was an excuse to bolster the 767, I don't know. But that's what Boeing said. Foot...shotgun...??

Maybe the composite structure fuselage isn’t well suited to having big holes cut in it? https://www.boeing.com/commercial/78...e-piece-barrel

I doubt Airbus would be up for the runaround again after the last debacle.

IG

This 'merry go round' is getting tiresome. Will the US end up ignoring Airbus again?