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Source: Privy Council No. 10

In recent years, the "Made in Boeing" brand has become a bad name. Major US agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), have been troubled by numerous problems with Boeing-made passenger planes and spacecraft. Now, a new member has been added to the list of US agencies that have been harmed by Boeing - the US Air Force.

The U.S. Defense News reported on July 31 that the U.S. Air Force has discovered a new defect in Boeing's new generation KC-46 aerial refueling aircraft, which can damage the aircraft's air system pipes. This defect means that the list of high-risk design defects that have not been resolved for this "problem aircraft" continues to grow. Of course, for Boeing, this is also a fatal problem - Boeing's defense department reported huge losses due to the delay in resolving the fault.

The report said that the problem lies with the KC-46's fuel pump, whose vibration can damage the air ducts in the bleed air system. This defect is classified as a Category 1 fault, the highest level of the U.S. Air Force. After the defect was discovered, Boeing quickly took measures to temporarily solve the problem, but Kevin Stamey, the executive officer of the U.S. Air Force's mobility and training aircraft program, admitted that there is no complete solution yet: "We have the potential to reduce the vibration level of the pipes and work hard to find a permanent solution. The mitigation measures currently in place are designed to minimize the damage caused by vibration."

The KC-46 tanker has been a pitfall for the US Air Force for many years. Since the KC-10 and KC-135 currently in service with the US Air Force are too old, the US Air Force has long wanted to upgrade. At the beginning of this century, the US Air Force launched a bidding plan for the next generation of aerial refueling tankers worth $35 billion. Boeing put forward the KC46 based on the Boeing 767 passenger aircraft, while Airbus launched the A330MRTT tanker modified based on the A330 passenger aircraft. In 2008, after careful comparison and testing, the US Air Force announced that the A330MRTT tanker project won.

There are also technical problems with KC-46 refueling A-10 attack aircraft

But how could Boeing let the Europeans win this huge arms sales order? The company immediately used various lobbying groups to put strong pressure on the US Air Force to re-bid. In the end, the US Air Force compromised and re-announced the results of the bidding in 2011 - naturally, Boeing's KC-46 won, and the related procurement amount increased by nearly $10 billion.

But what the U.S. Air Force did not expect was that the KC-46, which it had spent a huge amount of money to purchase, could be so deceptive. I guess NASA probably had the same feeling when it looked at Boeing's "Starliner" spacecraft. The KC-46 was first seriously delayed in delivery, and the first one was not delivered until 2018. Then the U.S. Air Force found that this thing was really hard to use, and various failures continued. For example, the wiring redundancy was insufficient, fuel leaked, the floor buckle was loose and could not carry cargo, and the coating of the stealth fighter's shell might be damaged during refueling... What made it even more difficult for the U.S. Air Force to accept was that a newly delivered KC-46 tanker in March 2019 actually had tools and other foreign objects left in it, proving that Boeing's production line management had serious problems. The U.S. Air Force announced angrily that it would suspend the acceptance of KC-46. Boeing, which was caught in the act, kept saying that it would carry out comprehensive rectification, but not long after, foreign objects appeared in another brand new KC-46 fuselage again.

If I were to ask an experienced person, the FAA should have discovered from the poor performance of the KC-46 that Boeing had a big problem with its production management...

RVS looks advanced, but it is a big problem if it is not easy to use

Anyway, the KC-46 was delivered to the U.S. Air Force with all kinds of faults and defects along the way. According to Defense News, the U.S. Air Force and Boeing are currently solving up to 7 Class 1 defects on the KC-46 tanker! The most concerned one is the Remote Vision System (RVS), which belongs to the refueling control system. Compared with the traditional refueling operation cabin located at the tail of the KC-135 and KC-10, which is visually controlled through a special window, the RVS replaces the transparent window for visual control with several cameras and sensors, allowing the refueling operator to sit in the cabin and guide the refueling aircraft through the display console and operate the refueling probe. However, the RVS system on the KC-46 currently has the problem of distorted images or even inability to see images under certain lighting conditions. There is no way to use it! The U.S. Air Force approved Boeing's redesigned solution in 2022, but for various reasons, the actual delivery time has been postponed to 2026.

By the way, in May this year, Boeing also admitted that the U.S. Air Force had once again suspended acceptance of the KC-46 tanker due to broken refueling rod parts... According to the contract signed between Boeing and the U.S. Air Force, most of the costs caused by these defects must be borne by Boeing itself. Due to the design and manufacturing problems of the KC-46, the company has spent more than $7 billion on the project in total, and it has also dragged down Boeing's defense department, which originally had the most oil and water, to suffer serious losses.

Of course, the real "victim" is still the U.S. Air Force - the average age of the U.S. Air Force's tankers is now approaching 50 years old, and the Pentagon still expects them to play a key role in potential Sino-US conflicts in the vast Pacific Ocean. What can the Pentagon do?