Funding Crunch Creates Uncertainty For USAF’s Next-Gen Tanker Plans

A strike package of eight stealth fighters heads west toward a coastal target. They are still over blue ocean, hundreds of miles east of their objective. But they have a problem: roaming enemy stealth fighters armed with ultra-long-range air-to-air missiles. The bulky weapons pose little threat to nimble U.S. stealth fighters, but they present a lethal risk to their accompanying Boeing KC-46. The tanker must peel away, rendering the strike mission impossible.

That scenario poses a terrible conundrum for modern air warfare. The U.S. Air Force’s stealth fighter fleet lacks the range to reach far-away targets from distant land bases in the Indo-Pacific region without inflight refueling support. However, its main competitor, China, has fielded new weapons, such as the AVIC J-20-launched PL-17 missile, that make the current fleet of U.S. tankers vulnerable.

• An analysis of alternatives is underway
• Air Force officials adapt their sales pitch for the new tanker

“If you think about it . . . [pushing] the tankers back means the fighters can’t get close, and [China] has realized it’s a lot harder to go after a [Lockheed Martin] F-35 and our other fifth- and sixth-generation fighters than it is to target a tanker,” Kevin Stamey, director for Mobility and Training Aircraft at Air Force Material Command, told the Aerial Refueling Systems Advisory Group’s (ARSAG) annual conference on April 24.

Air Mobility Command (AMC) planners think they have an answer for this problem. It is a new tanker, roughly the size of the Lockheed C-130, with stealthy features and advanced defensive systems. This Next-Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS) would not be as survivable as a Lockheed F-35 or F-22, but it could fly much deeper into contested airspace—far enough to top off the strikers with fuel to enable them to return from their mission.

The first stealthy, purpose-built aerial tanker for the Air Force fleet is the subject of a yearlong analysis of alternatives, the first step in a process that leads to a list of approved performance requirements, a competitive selection process and full-scale development.

But China’s long-range missiles are not the only obstacles facing AMC’s planners. In the same decade that the Air Force is fielding a new intercontinental ballistic missile, 100 new stealth bombers and a sixth-generation fighter, scant resources remain available to develop and produce a large, stealthy tanker. Even as the Air Force asks industry to submit concepts and rough order-of-magnitude pricing for the NGAS fleet, a grand total of only $8 million has been allocated so far to support AMC’s top acquisition priority. That is only enough to pay for the alternatives study.

Despite AMC’s goal of fielding the NGAS aircraft in the mid-2030s, no funding has been set aside yet for a typically 2-3-year competition, a 3-4-year technology maturation and risk-reduction process and a 6-8-year engineering and manufacturing development phase.

“NGAS is a challenge in the budget,” Stamey said. “We’re trying to figure out how we can at least do some early development on that program so that we’re ready and we can quickly field that program.”

To compete better for funding, AMC and Transportation Command leaders are changing their internal sales pitch as the Defense Department pieces together a funding plan for the five-year Future Years Defense Program proposal, which will be released next year for fiscal 2026. The new approach focuses on explaining how much striking power could be lost in the Indo-Pacific without sufficient and survivable refueling capabilities. In other words, approving funding for one survivable NGAS tanker means not having to buy several extra fighters, since a stealthy tanker can keep smaller numbers of the latter aloft for a longer period.

“If I can explain better that, OK, you’re going to miss an air refueling . . . [because] we don’t have enough booms in the air, and so you’re not going to be able to do this portion of the plan—that’s when it gets people’s attention,” Transportation Command head Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost said at ARSAG.

“So this is how many targets you’re not going to service, and you’re going to need twice the amount of [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft] because they’re not going to refuel any of those, and they are going to have to land. And so you’re going to need more jets in the air,” she added.

Air Force leaders could seek additional sources of funding for NGAS beyond the service’s $185 billion annual budget. An NGAS equipped for both boom and probe-and-drogue refueling methods also could refuel the combat aircraft fleet of the Navy and Marine Corps, which could be asked to contribute to the development cost of the new tanker.

“There will likely have to be some commitment beyond the Air Force to get the kind of developmental money and procurement money that it takes to actually make that real,” Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said at ARSAG.

The funding also depends on the feasibility of a stealthy tanker. Such a concept requires addressing the radar cross-section of the aircraft as well as the refueling mechanism, whether it is a boom or hose-and-drogue system. Several industry officials have told Aviation Week that such concepts exist and are feasible, but the technology is classified. But some Air Force leaders are still waiting to be persuaded based on the results of the analysis of alternatives.

“Can you actually make a penetrating tanker?” Moore asked at ARSAG on April 23. “What happens when you put the boom down? What happens when a receiver [aircraft] touches it? All those questions need to be answered.”

A day later at ARSAG, Stamey told the audience that he has been encouraged by industry’s responses to the analysis of alternatives thus far, which suggest the technology exists to make a stealthy, penetrating tanker design feasible.

“I think Gen. Moore alluded to yesterday that he’s not sure about that, but I actually think there’s some good concepts out there that will enable us to keep the fifth-generation and sixth-generation fighters pushing forward with NGAS,” Stamey said.

The survivability of the NGAS fleet may not depend on the stealth characteristics of the aircraft alone. The Air Force also is considering advanced defensive systems, including offboard capabilities. Briefing slides Stamey presented in March at a different event offer revealing clues. One slide refers to a defensive system based on an escort capability. A section of the slide marked “controlled unclassified information” stated that a demonstration called “Project Starfox” is underway to demonstrate such a capability.

In March 2021, AMC released a request for information from industry for proposals of a “loyal wingman” aircraft that could provide armed escort for defenseless, high-value, airborne assets, such as tankers and command-and-control aircraft. It was not clear, however, if the concept is related to Project Starfox, and AMC officials declined to comment.

“Since the NGAS [analysis of alternatives] is ongoing and won’t complete until October 2024, AMC cannot comment on its eventual survivability requirements,” an AMC spokesperson said. “The Department of the Air Force is considering both onboard and offboard capabilities.”

According to unclassified sections of Stamey’s briefing slides, onboard defensive capabilities include countermeasures, such as flares, jammers and a possible new kinetic interceptor option. It is not clear if the latter capability is in development. But the Air Force Research Laboratory had been working as late as 2015 on a concept for a Miniature Self-Defense Munition one-third the size of a Raytheon AIM-9 Sidewinder that could be launched at incoming missiles.

In addition to the stealth question, industry officials are informing the Air Force’s plans for how to operate a next-generation tanker. The proposals so far suggest the NGAS aircraft should be smaller than the KC-46. Both types of aircraft would still be necessary. The larger KC-46 would top off the NGAS before entering an enemy’s weapon engagement zone, then peel off from the strike package. The NGAS would proceed farther into contested airspace with the fighters, then top them off with fuel before reaching the most heavily defended targets.

“A [commercial-derivative tanker] could be the mother tanker for a ‘bucket brigade’ concept,” Stamey said.

—With Brian Everstine in Washington