Why the Air Force Flies 50-Year-Old Tankers

Our fleet of KC-135s dates back to the 1950s.

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The cause of the U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker crash in northern Kyrgyzstan today—and the fate of the crew of three—is unknown at this time. But today's news is likely to reopen questions over why the United States is dependent on aircraft that were developed in the 1950s to extend the range of its warplanes, and what is being done to replace an aircraft that the Air Force acknowledges uses obsolete parts and aged avionics.

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The answers to both questions are troubling. The Pentagon tried to replace its aging fleet of tankers in 2001, but scandal and industrial disputes derailed the effort. Even now, a dozen years later, we're not even close. The Air Force now has 418 KC-135 tankers in its inventory, but only 178 replacements will be ready to fly in 2028. That means these old birds will be flying for quite some time—until 2040—a fact that forced the Air Force to embark on a recently concluded upgrade to extend the life of the KC-135 fleet.

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That effort, which ended in April, added a digital flight director, a radar altimeter, an electronic engine instrument display, and Automatic Flight Control System to the aircraft. None of these safety enhancements were on the KC-135 that crashed this week. But if weather or visibility was a factor, the radar altimeter could have been particularly helpful to provide ground proximity warning.

Here's what's at stake. The United States is a powerhouse of power projection—the ability to move people and material across the globe exactly when needed. Every branch of the military uses KC-135s operated (mostly) by National Guard units to extend the range of their aircraft, because fuel is the true limit on an aircraft's range and ability to stay overhead. Need an A-10 Warthog to stay overhead long enough to support Army units on the ground? Want a B-2 Spirit to take off from Missouri and spook North Korea? Require an MV-22 Osprey to bring Marines far inland without fighting for a beachhead? You need a refueling tanker.

The U.S. has known for years that an aging fleet of tankers could be a weak link in American defense planning. In a 2004 report, the General Accountability Office noted that its investigators "reviewed the aerial refueling fleet in 1996 and found that KC-135 aircraft were aging and becoming increasingly costly to maintain and operate." At the time, the Air Force had a plan to keep the KC-135s flying until about 2030. But once Congress expressed an interest in the airplanes, the Air Force's mood shifted from complacency to urgency—it wanted the refuelers in service by 2013. "The Air Force stated that the urgency was due to growing operating and support costs, declining aircraft availability, and an increasing possibility that a fleet-wide grounding event would prevent continued operation of the KC-135," the GAO report said.

Then, during the 2000s, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan showed that urgency was founded. Twin wars demonstrated how vital tankers are to an extended fight program, and showed the heavy toll that a fast pace of operations could place on the fleet. Congress backed the tanker replacement program as a no-brainer, but something terrible happened on the way to the flight line—the Washington, D.C., procurement process.

Boeing won the contract for a new tanker, but in 2003 the deal fell apart amid allegations of crooked contracting. One former Air Force official and the Boeing executive who hired her were both given jail sentences. The contract was reopened, closed, reopened, disputed by others in the industry who'd lost the contract, and subjected to General Accountability Office review and political speeches. At the end of the day—and at the end of the decade—the KC-135s were still flying with no replacement in sight. (Amazingly, the Air Force keeps them at about an 80 percent mission readiness level.)

Boeing, the original victor, emerged as the winner of a $35 billion contract for 179 new tankers, called the KC-46. (That amount does not include future maintenance and parts, which could reach $100 billion.) "Our number one acquisition priority in Air Mobility Command—and it remains the Air Force's number one priority—is making sure the KC-46 tanker delivers on time," USAF Gen. Paul Selva, head of AMC said recently. "And on cost."

With luck, the new aircraft will be ready in 2028. That leaves hundreds of KC-135s still in the fleet, serving as the aged backbone of future military operations until 2040. And all the while, the cost to maintain and repair the aircraft rises, not to mention the cost of keeping them safe to fly.

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