Tanker fleet modernization will continue for decades, US Air Force officials say

The U.S. Air Force will recapitalize aerial refueling tanker aircraft for decades longer and build new platforms for their sustainment in the meantime, service leaders and industry partners said Tuesday.

To support the tanker aircraft and the anticipated mission capability rates, the Air Force should continue prioritizing available spare parts and modernization efforts for the aircraft, officials and industry experts said during a panel at the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference .

“The last KC-135 pilot has not been born,” Air Mobility Command Deputy Commander Maj. Gen. Gerald Donohue said during the panel, titled “Long-Range Airpower: Lessons from Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury.”

“That is just a statement of fact when you consider the time it takes to modernize, and so we will have to sustain our legacy platform as well as our newest platforms, and ensure that the joint force is supported by being able to execute the mission,” he continued.

The force primarily uses two tanker aircraft: the legacy KC-135 Stratotanker and the next-generation KC-46A Pegasus , which is in the first phase of recapitalization.

As the force continues to modernize its strategic bomber fleet, the service must increase optionality by modernizing the tanker fleet to better offer alternatives when needed.

Moving forward, recapitalization will be the command’s priority alongside modernization of existing aircraft, Donohue asserted, by emphasizing connectivity, survivability and technical viability.

“Epic Fury, Midnight Hammer underscore the importance that connectivity plays, not only to our own survivability, but more importantly, to the success of the joint force and the mission at hand, whether it’s passing information to the bomber force as they’re executing their refueling or to the combat air forces forward, we’ve got to have the connectivity to add that value,” Donohue said.

Donohue said that the service is currently going through recapitalization as it brings on the KC-46s and modernizes the KC-135s, highlighting that once the acquisition of the KC-46 is completed, the service will still have hundreds of KC-135s.

As future conflicts and operating areas get more and more contested, getting the bomber or fighter force to their last Air Refueling Control Time, or ARTC, puts the force at risk, he said, furthering the need for survival platforms with additional tanker systems that propel the viability of legacy and future aircraft.

“We can never walk away from the idea that our young airmen out there on the line today and for decades still will have to sustain 70-year-old-plus airframes,” Donohue said.

The panelists argued that partnership with industry matters most as the “biggest enabler” for getting capability into the hands of the warfighter faster and at a lower cost to the service, saying that more opportunities to rethink the work upfront boosts efficiency for the operator.

Jamie Burgess, Boeing’s vice president and general manager of Mobility, Surveillance and Bombers, said that the work the company did on the KC-46 aircraft, such as upgrades to the vision system for refueling, altered the way they think about the development work.

“Getting teams together — operators, subject matter experts, engineers — come to agreement on design up front so we can get after the detailed design work and get it built and tested and out to the operators,” he said in the panel.

Cristina Stassis is a reporter covering stories surrounding the defense industry, national security, military/veteran affairs and more. She previously worked as an editorial fellow for Defense News in 2024 where she assisted the newsroom in breaking news across Sightline Media Group.

美国空军领导人和行业合作伙伴周二表示，美国空军将对空中加油机进行更新换代，使其服役期限延长数十年，同时还将建造新的平台来维持其正常运转。

为支持加油机和预期的任务能力，空军应继续优先考虑可用的备件和飞机的现代化工作，官员和行业专家在2026年空军与航天部队协会的航空、航天与网络会议上的小组讨论中表示。

“KC-135 的最后一位飞行员还没有出生，”空军机动司令部副司令杰拉尔德·多诺霍少将在题为“远程空中力量：午夜铁锤行动和史诗狂怒行动的教训”的小组讨论会上说道。

“考虑到现代化所需的时间，这只是一个事实陈述，因此我们必须维护我们的传统平台以及我们最新的平台，并确保联合部队能够执行任务，”他继续说道。

该部队主要使用两种加油机：老式的 KC-135 同温层加油机和下一代 KC-46A 飞马加油机，后者目前处于更新换代的第一阶段。

随着空军不断对其战略轰炸机队进行现代化改造，空军必须通过对加油机队进行现代化改造来增加选择余地，以便在需要时更好地提供替代方案。

多诺霍断言，展望未来，该司令部的首要任务是更新装备，同时对现有飞机进行现代化改造，重点是提高连通性、生存能力和技术可行性。

“史诗狂怒、午夜铁锤行动凸显了互联互通的重要性，这不仅关乎我们自身的生存，更重要的是，它关乎联合部队的成功和当前任务的完成。无论是向正在执行空中加油的轰炸机部队传递信息，还是向前方作战空军传递信息，我们都必须具备互联互通的能力才能发挥这种价值。”多诺霍说道。

多诺霍表示，该部门目前正在进行资本重组，引进 KC-46 并对 KC-135 进行现代化改造。他强调，一旦 KC-46 的采购完成，该部门仍将拥有数百架 KC-135。

他表示，随着未来冲突和作战区域的竞争日益激烈，让轰炸机或战斗机部队完成最后一次空中加油控制时间（ARTC）将使部队面临风险，因此更加需要配备额外加油系统的生存平台，以提高现有和未来飞机的生存能力。

“我们永远不能忽视这样一个事实：今天以及未来几十年里，我们那些在前线作战的年轻空军人员仍然需要维护70多年前的飞机机体，”多诺霍说。

小组成员认为，与行业的合作至关重要，因为它是让作战人员更快、更经济地获得作战能力的“最大推动力”。他们表示，更多的机会提前重新思考工作可以提高操作人员的效率。

波音公司副总裁兼移动、监视和轰炸机总经理杰米·伯吉斯表示，该公司在 KC-46 飞机上所做的工作，例如对加油视觉系统的升级，改变了他们对开发工作的看法。

他在小组讨论中说：“让团队成员——运营人员、主题专家、工程师——提前就设计达成一致，这样我们就可以着手进行详细的设计工作，并将其建造、测试，然后交付给运营人员。”

克里斯蒂娜·斯塔西斯是一位记者，主要报道国防工业、国家安全、军事/退伍军人事务等领域的新闻。她曾于2024年在《防务新闻》担任编辑助理，协助Sightline媒体集团旗下新闻编辑室处理突发新闻。