The new contract is for the ninth lot of an overall order for 128 KC-46As, 68 of which have been delivered to the Air Force, the company said.
By Lee FerranB-21, hypersonics and more: How digital development is driving industry innovation
Technological advancements are key to keeping pace with customer demands and evolving threat landscapes.
RVS 2.0 provides a “quantum leap” in camera technology, said Lt. Col. Joshua Renfro of the Air Force’s KC-46 cross functional team. “We’re very confident in the product. We like where it’s going, and we really like what this is going to deliver to us down the road.”
By Valerie Insinna The KC-46’s new Remote Vision System 2.0 now won’t be available until October 2025.
By Valerie Insinna
The Air Force could not provide a cost estimate detailing what the service will pay in order to replace the KC-46’s panoramic sensors.
By Valerie Insinna Whether the RVS 2.0 would include changes to the panoramic camera system was a major point of contention between the Air Force and the defense contractor.
By Valerie Insinna “Without taking these steps prior to closing the preliminary design review, the program may accept a remote vision system design that contains immature technologies and greater risk of cost and schedule growth,” the Government Accountability Office states in its report.
By Valerie Insinna
Total cost overruns for the program sit at about $5.4 billion in pre-tax charges, and all must be paid by Boeing.
By Valerie Insinna
GA-ASI’s MQ-9B: The right UAV for persistence, power, and performance
When assessing the state of the art of unmanned aerial systems, it’s critical to be very clear about what various aircraft can and can’t do – and could never do.
The Air Force worries that if it approves Remote Vision System 2.0 before concerns about the tanker’s panoramic display system are resolved, it could be locked into paying for a fix.
By Valerie Insinna TRANSCOM can now task KC-46 tankers to use their air refueling boom to fill up C-17 Globemaster III, B-52H Stratofortress and other KC-46 aircraft during day-to-day operations.
By Theresa Hitchens
“We still have several more years of procurement of the KC-46. So, the good thing is we have time to have these conversations, and look at the technologies out there,” Lt. Gen. David Nahom told appropriators today.
By Theresa Hitchens
“There’s a lot of retrofit that will have to take place,” Gen. Stephen Lyons said about the replacement of the tanker’s faulty boom camera.
By Theresa Hitchens “One of those next strategic questions for the Air Force is going to be: can you defend a tanker against an onslaught of fighters, who know that every tanker you kill is like killing a lot of fighters or bombers or drones that it supports?” says Air Force acquisition czar Will Roper.
By Theresa Hitchens
The Air Force provided few details about the latest problem bedeviling the airborne tanker in its terse statement last night, saying only that it had “upgraded an existing deficiency of its KC-46 Pegasus fuel system to Category I.”
By Theresa Hitchens
The cascade of problems with the plane, which Boeing called low risk and promised to deliver 18 combat-ready aircraft in 2017, is unlikely to deliver planes ready for war for several more years, Gen. Maryanne Miller, the head of Air Mobility Command, made clear today.
By Colin Clark
