WASHINGTON — The Air Force has awarded Boeing a $2.3 billion contract for 15 more KC-46A Pegasus refueling tankers.
The award, announced by the Pentagon Tuesday evening, brings to 153 the variety of KC-46s Boeing has on contract to construct for the USA and allies. The Air Force plans to purchase 179 KC-46s, and Boeing said it has thus far delivered 76 of those.
The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force has two KC-46s in its fleet and 4 more on contract with Boeing, and Israel has ordered 4 of its own.
The Pentagon said work on these aircraft, which will probably be the KC-46′s tenth production lot, is anticipated to be complete by the tip of July 2027. Boeing builds KC-46s at its factory in Everett, Washington.
This contract follows one other issued in January for the ninth production lot, which was also for 15 tankers and valued at $2.3 billion.
The Air Force has steadily increased the presence of the KC-46 in its fleet and its abilities. In September 2022, the service cleared the KC-46 to refuel all aircraft, except the A-10 Warthog, and perform all refueling missions around the globe.
In July, Travis Air Force Base in California received its first of 24 planned KC-46s, which is able to replace the bottom’s aging KC-10 Extenders. Travis, the most important and furthest west of Air Mobility Command’s installations, is nicknamed the “Gateway to the Pacific” attributable to its location and standing as a serious hub for logistics and other mobility operations.
KC-46s also took part in July’s Mobility Guardian 23 exercise within the Indo-Pacific region, during which the tankers flew sorties of as much as 35 hours straight. The service said in a release this showed the aircraft’s ability to perform complex long-distance, long-duration missions to refuel fighters and other aircraft during operations.
And this fall, five KC-46s and about 12 service members from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Latest Jersey took part in a force generation certification event throughout the two-week Neptune Series exercise at Travis.
Along with aerial refueling, the KC-46 can transport cargo, passengers and medical patients in aeromedical evacuation support missions, and might share data amongst other aircraft and ground operations centers to offer a fuller picture of the battlefield.
The Air Force awarded Boeing a $184 million contract in March to upgrade the KC-46′s communications systems with capabilities including antijamming and encryption features for its line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight communications technologies.
The Air Force also may buy an extra wave of 75 KC-46s as a part of its planned recapitalization of its KC-135 fleet. Boeing’s possibilities of scoring that contract rose in October, when Lockheed Martin announced it might not compete for the interim tanker. But Airbus, which had partnered with Lockheed to jointly pitch their LMXT tanker, said it still plans to compete to exchange the KC-135s.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.