Can the Air Force say for certain that it will have a replacement tanker in production before the risk of retiring 114 KC-135Es “becomes untenable”? That is the question posed by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) to the service’s top uniformed leader Wednesday. Gen. Michael Moseley explained that USAF planned to distribute the E model crews across the service, upgrading them to R models and enabling the service to generate more R model sorties. Moseley noted that the past and current commanders of US Transportation Command and Air Mobility Command believe that retiring the KC-135Es would only produce a “nine percent degrade in total offload.” And, the Chief of Staff pointed out that the Air Force does not fly the E model tankers in Southwest Asia because they’re “less reliable, … carry less of a load, [because] the engines are such that you can’t lift the weight.”
The U.S. military is carrying out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico using U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft as part of the Pentagon’s effort to secure the southern border at the direction of President…