In the minds of many Americans, the United States Air Force is the purveyor of the very latest in technology.

Often, that’s true, however a glaring exception is the ancient fleet of in-air refueling tankers. First built during the Eisenhower administration, they are old. Up to 19 percent of the KC-135s are in depot at any one time according to Brig Gen Michelle Johnson of US Transportation Command, in testimony before a House Armed Services air and land forces panel.  A new aircraft would immediately provide more availability and a better mission capable rate.  As of today, there is not enough air refueling capability to meet the demands of the worst case scenario presented by the recent Mobility Capability and Requirements Study.

Even the Air Force’s latest jet fighter, the F-22 Raptor, for all its sophistication, is very limited without the ability to refuel in the air.

Read More after the break.

There are reasons we don’t see many Edsels on the road these days; they got old. Yet we are allowing our vital tanker fleet to decay without replacing them. The KC-135 was an excellent design in it’s time. The Air Force has done an exceptional job preserving and maintaining them, but they’ve flown far past their design flight hours. With each passing year, they become less dependable, and more costly to maintain. Conversely, each year, the workload we place on them grows.

In the region of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Air Force is flying nearly 12,000 sorties a month. As that number grows, the need for tanker flights inevitably grows.

Each day, we are one day closer to being forced to retire a large number of these aircraft without regard to the severe loss of global capabilities. One crash can force the grounding of the entire fleet during the investigation, as has happened with other aging aircraft, including the F-15. Yet, the F-15 is barely half the age of the KC-135.

The Air Force has 505 tankers averaging over 46 years of age. The size of the U.S. fleet of aircraft and global responsibilities mandate a similar tanker fleet for many decades to come. Yet, all of the older KC-135 tankers will have to go. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact of time.

Mid-air refueling is not a luxury for our military. It is a daily operational necessity. Without it, airstrikes that save lives of ground troops might not happen, or might be fatally delayed because a plane is not loitering at the ready. Without refueling, the pipeline of supplies and reinforcements – even medical evacuations – would suffer. Tankers are essential.

Put simply, our ability to provide sovereign options to President Obama - to project power and execute humanitarian relief efforts globally - rides on the backbone of our tanker fleet.

As the New England Region President of the Air Force Association, I am deeply concerned that the Air Force’s number one priority – a new tanker – has so often been delayed and pushed to the back of the line.

The Air Force Association is a non-profit organization, and as such, does not take part in contract disputes. We, the AFA, do unequivocally advocate the rapid acquisition of a tanker fleet. Very soon, we’ll have a serious safety issue for our tanker pilots if we do not act decisively. They deserve better.

The Air Force plan is fairly straightforward: replace the oldest, least serviceable tankers first, hopefully at a rate of some 12-18 per year. Even in this best case scenario, many of the R model KC-135s must be maintained for many decades to come, some eventually as many as 90 years or more after the first one was rolled out in the Eisenhower administration.

In a best case view of the administrative or legal decisions we still await, the first new tanker will roll out in 2015 at the earliest – that is if the present program is followed. 

For the sake of our national interests, politics must be set aside on this one; we must not delay the process and must build a new tanker before a need becomes a crisis.

John Hasson

President, New England Region

Air Force Association