The Air Force plans to use the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus’s Capability Production Document “as the most affordable requirements basis” for the new program, potentially giving the embattled aerospace manufacturer a leg up in a competition.
“This strategy to become a supplier of the US government is not a project that I have created inside of my business unit only. It is a 'One Embraer' approach,” Embraer Defense and Security CEO Bosco da Costa Jr told Breaking Defense.
Standoff capability means warfighters stay connected and remain remotely located in a safer environment while making it harder for adversaries to target them.
“I think it’s fair to say that the L3 partnership is not there anymore for the agile tanker,” Embraer Defense and Security CEO Bosco da Costa Jr. told Breaking Defense. “They decided not to move on [it] because of other priorities.”
A recent request for information for NGAS to industry represents a new approach that seeks to gather feedback from more vendors earlier in the procurement process, according to Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter.
Initial flight tests showed that a mitigation technique "look[s] very promising" as an interim solution, an Air Force official said, suggesting the issue could be downgraded relatively soon.
Responses will help shape analysis for the tanker program, known as the Next Generation Air refueling System.
After manifesting 1,400 payloads aboard the ISS, Voyager is applying its mission management expertise to the next generation of space stations, ensuring uninterrupted mission readiness and success from the ground to space.
Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter noted potential troubles ahead for the KC-46A and said T-7A production could start "a little later" than previously anticipated, but he remained confident about the way forward for the two aircraft.
Breaking Defense toured Boeing’s Seattle-area facilities where the KC-46A is built, and company officials explained fixes in the works for six critical issues, from new cameras to better seals on fuel lines.
"We just kind of need to get their no-kidding ground truth of, ‘this is what we think we can deliver and when we think we can deliver it,'" Andrew Hunter, the service's acquisition chief, said in a Sept. 5 interview at the Pentagon.
Each KC-46A will take about two months to retrofit with a new vision system, according to the Air Force’s program lead, a fix that will address two of six remaining critical defects in Boeing’s Pegasus air refueling tanker.
Reducing cognitive overload on warfighters while improving “time to trust” for autonomous systems is a matter of design.
“I think what you're hearing from individuals like Hon. Hunter and Hon. Kendall is a recognition that the requirements that went into the JCIDS process are not revolutionary," said Scott Boyd, Air Force deputy program manager for mobility aircraft.