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A new U.S. Air Force analysis that recommends a systems-based approach to achieve survivable air refueling renders moot a next-gen stealthy tanker like the one pictured.
The U.S. Air Force has found clarity after months of tumultuous debate over two items at the top of its modernization agenda. And the organization’s recommendation: Keep the sixth-generation fighter, but kill the new tanker.
While the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter and Next-Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS) tanker are seemingly independent capabilities, their fates became intertwined in the monthslong analysis that followed the Air Force’s decision last July to pause a go-ahead decision on the former.
- The service seeks other paths to improve tanker survivability
- Original NGAD requirements survive monthslong debate
In the end, proposals to leverage the development of a more survivable tanker fleet to reduce the cost and complexity of an otherwise exquisite new fighter lost the internal debate. Air Force leaders settled on a different approach that seeks to achieve survivable air refueling through conventional large tankers, such as the Boeing KC-46 and KC-135.
Instead of fielding large, stealthy tankers costing hundreds of millions each to operate in contested airspace, the Air Force can focus on disrupting an enemy’s already complicated process of finding, tracking and engaging even larger aerial targets at extremely long ranges.
“There are many attack surfaces that we can attack to bring survivable air refueling,” Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel, the Air Force’s director of Force Design, Integration and Wargaming on the Air Staff in the Pentagon, said during a talk at the Hudson Institute Feb. 26.
“NGAS might be part of the solution, but there are other places along this kill chain that we can attack the adversary, and that’s the approach,” Kunkel said. “We’re taking it from a systems approach. That’s what you need to do.”
The Air Force’s internal conclusions remain only recommendations, but they could prove influential. The Trump administration is finalizing its fiscal 2026 budget proposal, and the NGAS and NGAD programs hang in the balance.
Prospects for a stealthy NGAS tanker have been on a roller-coaster ride. The concept emerged in 2006 as part of the Air Force’s three-phase approach to replacing more than 400 aging KC-135s. The plan started by fielding 179 KC-X tankers, now known as the KC-46. The service is debating whether to solicit bids for another batch of commercial-derivative tankers for the follow-on KC-Y contract or buy a second batch of KC-46s featuring survivability upgrades. And the KC-Z program envisioned a large stealthy tanker, perhaps with a flying wing or blended wing body configuration. This became the NGAS program.
At the beginning of 2024, the outlook for the NGAS program appeared dim. The Air Force outlined plans to launch a competition in fiscal 2026 but inserted no funding into the Pentagon’s long-term spending program. Prospects seemed to brighten over the summer, when the NGAD source-selection process was on hiatus.
The Air Force’s former civilian leaders, including then-Secretary Frank Kendall, became concerned that the NGAD program would be unaffordable unless it cost no more than a $94 million Lockheed Martin F-35A. Worries also grew within the service about the ability of forward bases to support the operations of an exquisite NGAD fighter, given their vulnerability to enemy missile barrage.
As debate over the NGAD program continued, the acquisition of a large stealthy tanker became more attractive. If the Air Force operated a more survivable tanker, the argument went, it could fly deeper into contested airspace. As a consequence, a next-generation fighter might not have to be large because it could top off its fuel tanks closer to an enemy target. Since unit cost correlates with aircraft weight and size, buying a small number of large, stealthy tankers could pay off if it meant the Air Force could acquire a larger number of smaller new fighters.
In recent months, however, the original requirements for the NGAD program appear to have overcome the arguments of skeptics within the service. The program still needs the assent of the Trump administration to resume the long-delayed source-selection process, but Air Force leaders are again certain of the value provided by an exquisite next-generation fighter.
“NGAD remains an important part of our force design, and it fundamentally changes the character of the fight in a really, really good way for the joint force,” Kunkel said. “If the joint force wants to fight with an NGAD and air superiority in these really, really tough places to achieve it, then we’ll pursue NGAD. Frankly, it’ll be less operational risk.”
Editor's note: This article was updated to clarify information about the KC-Y decision. .
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