March Air Reserve Base is top pick to host new KC-46 tankers

California’s March Air Reserve Base is on track to become the next home of the Air Force’s newest tanker plane, the service announced Monday.

Officials tapped March as their preferred installation to host 12 KC-46 Pegasus refueling jets for the Air Force Reserve. The fleet would replace older KC-135 Stratotankers — first deployed in 1956 — with a more advanced design.

Each base faces an environmental inspection to gauge how the fleet would affect local resources, noise pollution and the surrounding nature.

The Air Force will make a final decision in fall 2023 on whether to stick with March, or to turn to runners-up Grissom ARB, Indiana, or Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. March also beat out Reserve components at Beale AFB, California, Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, and Niagara Falls ARB, New York.

“March is expected to begin operating the new aircraft in 2025 and the unit will be fully operational by 2027,” California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office said in a release Tuesday.

The base, located about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, would consist of more than 700 military and civilian personnel, Feinstein’s office said. That’s about 200 more employees than currently work with the KC-135 unit there.

March offers “the only Reserve candidate location with a current active [duty] association,” meaning it would be responsible for the tankers but share them with at least one active duty unit, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., said in September.

The KC-46 aims to gas up planes in midair with two different refueling systems and carry as much as 65,000 pounds of cargo in airlift missions and aeromedical evacuations. Pegasus planes can refuel almost three-quarters of U.S. Air Force aircraft in need of fuel on flights around the world.

Its progress has been delayed by multiple design problems that make it unable to reliably fill up other planes, such as faulty camera systems that obscure the receiver aircraft outside. Still, a fix for the remote vision system won’t be available for at least a year, and the KC-46 is banned from servicing certain jets for fear of scratching their stealth coating.

Boeing is building the fleet of 179 tankers under a $4.9 billion contract.

KC-46s are already, or are expected to be, stationed at MacDill AFB, Florida; McConnell AFB in Kansas; Altus AFB in Oklahoma; Seymour Johnson AFB in North Carolina; Travis AFB, California; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, and Pease Air National Guard Base in New Hampshire.

Rachel Cohen is the editor of Air Force Times. She joined the publication as its senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), Air and Space Forces Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy and elsewhere.

美国空军周一宣布，加利福尼亚州马奇空军后备基地有望成为美国空军最新型加油机的下一个驻地。

官员们选定马奇空军基地作为部署12架KC-46“飞马”空中加油机的首选基地，这些飞机将用于空军预备役部队。这批飞机将取代老旧的KC-135“同温层加油机”（该机型于1956年首次部署），采用更先进的设计。

每个基地都要接受环境检查，以评估舰队会对当地资源、噪音污染和周围自然环境造成怎样的影响。

空军将于2023年秋季最终决定是否继续沿用马奇空军基地，还是选择其他备选方案，例如印第安纳州的格里索姆空军基地或俄克拉荷马州的廷克空军基地。马奇空军基地还击败了加利福尼亚州比尔空军基地、马里兰州安德鲁斯联合基地和纽约州尼亚加拉瀑布空军基地的预备役部队。

“预计 March 将于 2025 年开始运营这架新飞机，该部队将于 2​​027 年全面投入运营，”加州民主党参议员黛安·范斯坦的办公室周二在一份声明中表示。

范斯坦办公室表示，该基地位于洛杉矶以东约80英里处，将拥有700多名军人和文职人员。这比目前在该基地工作的KC-135部队的员工人数多出约200人。

加州共和党众议员肯·卡尔弗特 (Ken Calvert) 在 9 月份表示，马奇是“唯一一个与现役部队有联系的预备役候选地点”，这意味着它将负责油轮，但至少会与一个现役部队共享这些油轮。

KC-46 旨在利用两种不同的空中加油系统为飞机进行空中加油，并在空运任务和航空医疗后送中运载多达 65,000 磅的货物。飞马加油机可以为全球飞行中近四分之三需要加油的美国空军飞机提供空中加油。

由于存在诸多设计缺陷，例如摄像头系统故障会遮挡外部接收飞机的视线，导致KC-46加油机无法可靠地为其他飞机加油，其研发进度因此受阻。此外，远程视觉系统的修复方案至少一年内无法实现，而且由于担心会刮伤某些喷气式飞机的隐形涂层，KC-46也被禁止为其提供加油服务。

根据一份价值 49 亿美元的合同，波音公司正在建造 179 架加油机。

KC-46 已经或预计将驻扎在佛罗里达州麦克迪尔空军基地；堪萨斯州麦康奈尔空军基地；俄克拉荷马州阿尔图斯空军基地；北卡罗来纳州西摩·约翰逊空军基地；加利福尼亚州特拉维斯空军基地；新泽西州麦圭尔-迪克斯-莱克赫斯特联合基地和新罕布什尔州皮斯空军国民警卫队基地。

瑞秋·科恩是《空军时报》的编辑。她于2021年3月加入该刊物，担任高级记者。她的作品曾发表在《华盛顿邮报》、《弗雷德里克新闻邮报》（马里兰州）、《空军与太空部队杂志》、《国防内幕》、《卫生政策内幕》等刊物上。