Air Mobility Command, responsible for the Air Force’s airlift and tanker fleets, got some refueling help of its own from a commercial provider for the first time earlier this month.
The milestone came when a KDC-10 tanker owned by Omega Air Refueling passed fuel onto a C-17 over California on April 10. The airlifter came from the 62nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which said in an April 23 release that it used a Pacific Air Forces contract to task the mission.
PACAF has utilized Omega before—a KDC-10 refueled F-15, F-16, and F-22 fighters over the Pacific in November 2023, followed by a B-52 bomber and MC-130J special ops aircraft in March 2024.
But this latest mission to refuel a C-17 was significant “because it marked the first instance of contracted air refueling of an Air Mobility Command aircraft,” Pete Vanagas, Omega’s director of U.S. Air Force business development, said in a statement.
While the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have used commercial refuelers for almost two decades, the Air Force only started doing so in 2023, mostly to support exercises.
Former Air Mobility Command boss Gen. Mike Minihan told Congress in July 2024 that his team had done preliminary work considering how it could use commercial refueling, and that he saw “value” in it. However, he stressed that more analysis and certification was needed, adding that it was important to “make sure that with commercial refueling, that we don’t decrement the readiness of those in uniform flying the tankers.”
It was the readiness of C-17 pilots, though, that led the 62nd Airlift Wing to seek commercial refueling— Maj. Ryan Vigil of the 62nd Operational Support Squadron said the wing “has limited access to air refueling training, which can impact the currency of our pilots.”
A little less than 300 miles from the wing’s home base of McChord is Fairchild Air Force Base, home of the 92nd Refueling Wing with four squadrons of KC-135s. But the 92nd is incredibly busy, with a squadron usually deployed downrange, and the Air Force’s aging tanker fleet is always in high demand, especially to keep the Combat Air Force flying.
As a result, airlift wings like the 62nd can have a “training backlog” they hope commercial refueling can help clear, per the release.
“The training is very similar to what we experience with the KC-10 and KC-46,” Vigil said, emphasizing that using the KDC-10 won’t affect the refueling training for the C-17 pilots.
Omega’s KDC-10s are converted DC-10 aircraft and utilize an optical sensor system which, like the cameras on the KC-46, allows crews to operate the refueling boom without looking out the back of the aircraft.
Commercial refueling could free up military tankers and Airmen to go forward into combat zones, proponents say.
