Next-gen stealth tanker may be unaffordable, Air Force secretary fears

Air Power Secretary Frank Kendall raised a warning flag on the service’s means to afford a next-generation refueling tanker at a mobility convention Nov. 1.

The Air Power says that tanker — known as the Subsequent-Technology Aerial Refueling System, or NGAS — is critical to modernize the Air Power’s means to battle a struggle towards China, together with a sixth-generation fighter often known as Subsequent Technology Air Dominance and accompanying drone wingmen often known as collaborative fight plane, or CCA.

However the service is dealing with a funds crunch — one that will place its means to obtain all three new techniques doubtful, Kendall mentioned on the Airlift/Tanker Affiliation Symposium in Grapevine, Texas.

“Proper now, given our commitments, our sources and strategic priorities, it’s arduous for me to see how we are able to afford any mixture of these new designs,” Kendall mentioned. “What I fear about probably the most is the adequacy of our sources.”

The Air Power hopes to discipline NGAS across the mid-2030s, to supply a extra defensible approach to refuel fighters and different plane throughout a battle with a serious adversary akin to China. This may be notably vital in a struggle within the Indo-Pacific area, which might require Air Power planes to fly over huge expanses of ocean and want a number of aerial refuelings.

NGAS may have stealth capabilities, and the Air Power has thought of a blended wing idea as a potential design. Kendall beforehand mentioned NGAS would doubtless have a novel design, not based mostly on an present business plane.

However a wave of modernizations — together with the acquisition of the B-21 Raider stealth bomber and early work on the LGM-35A Sentinel nuclear missile — is hitting the Air Power concurrently, stretching its sources extraordinarily skinny and forcing it to rethink what’s financially reasonable.

Tightening budgets and excessive anticipated prices first threw NGAD’s future doubtful this summer time. The service is now within the midst of a four-month evaluate of its air superiority technique that considers the way to change NGAD’s design to convey its prices down, in addition to how the long run fighter would possibly work in live performance with different techniques — specifically the second iteration of CCAs and NGAS — to regulate the airspace in battle zones.

A lot has modified for the reason that Pentagon laid the groundwork for NGAD a decade in the past, Kendall mentioned, together with the potential threats the US faces, expertise, and the way the army companies plan to collectively battle a struggle side-by-side and with allies. These adjustments are additionally prompting the Air Power to take one other take a look at what one of the best technique could be for a future refueling tanker.