Boeing is waiting on the Pentagon to issue the requirements for the forthcoming KC-X tanker competition, so the company still doesn’t know yet whether it will offer an aerial refueler based on its 767 or its larger 777 commercial aircraft. But what is already clear is that the company is committed to taking a lower risk approach this time around, Rick LeMaster, Boeing’s KC-X program manager, told reporters today at AFA’s Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition in Washington, D.C. This means there will be no so-called “Franken-tanker” like Boeing offered in the last KC-X go-around, when it proposed a variant of the of the 767 with new wings and other new major components added to the baseline 767 design. Lemaster said this is “not the strategy” that the company will pursue. Continue
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.