The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial refueling tankers on Nov. 21.
The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.
All told, USAF has awarded contracts for 158 of 179 planned tankers. The service may still buy a more upgraded Pegasus as part of its KC-135 recapitalization program. In a release, Boeing said it has delivered 89 aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, plus four to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.
The new deal is good news for Boeing, which has suffered $7 billion in losses on the program and faced issues with both its defense and commercial divisions in recent months. The lot cost is up $64 million from last November, when the Air Force and Boeing struck a deal for Lot 10.
The KC-46 program as a whole is making gradual progress after years of problems and multiple deficiencies related to the aircraft’s refueling system. Deliveries resumed in May after a two-month hold related to the tanker’s boom, and the first KC-46 operational deployment started in October when tankers from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., landed in the Middle East.
In its release, Boeing noted that the KC-46 has “flown more than 100,000 flight hours and offloaded more than 200 million pounds of fuel.”
The Air Force, meanwhile, is contemplating its future tanker plans as part of a broader look at how it approaches the air superiority mission—the service had envisioned a somewhat stealthy Next-Generation Aerial Refueling System (NGAS) to accompany the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter into contested airspace, extending the fighter’s range.
But Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has admitted that with its current budget, the service cannot afford to buy NGAS, NGAD, and its planned Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Without more resources, leaders will have to decide what to prioritize.