Boeing’s KC-46A Pegasus tanker refuels an F-15E aircraft during Phase II receiver certification testing out of Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. A Boeing/U.S. Air Force team completed receiver certification with F-16, KC-135, C-17, A-10, KC-46, B-52, F/A-18 and F-15E aircraft. Photo, courtesy of Boeing.
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s (AFLCMC) KC-135 Center Console Refresh (CCR) program office at Tinker AFB, Okla., said that it expects to issue a solicitation in May after more than two years of delay.
In late 2023, the service cancelled the solicitation before U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thompson Dietz ordered the Air Force to reinstate it in January 2024. In October 2023, RTX Collins Aerospace’s Rockwell Collins business had protested the Air Force’s intended use of a fixed price-incentive fee structure and other contract elements–a protest followed by an Air Force cancellation of the CCR Request for Proposal (RFP).
In January 2024, Dietz said the Air Force’s decision lacked a “rational basis.” The Air Force said that it cancelled the solicitation because of industry feedback and Collins’ protest and that the service had wanted to restructure the solicitation to get more offerors.
CCR is to modernize the KC-135 fuel system and flight displays. In 2022, the CCR program said it had received interest from Collins Aerospace, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, L3Harris Technologies and Field Aerospace.
On March 25, the program is to hold a virtual industry day. “The dialogue from this event will be instrumental in developing a comprehensive final RFP, targeted for release in May 2026,” according to a business notice. Firms interested in bidding may receive a tour of a KC-135 at Tinker next month.
In 2022, AFLCMC said that the KC-135’s integrated fuel management panel, fuel management advisory computer, control display units, tank interface unit, and multi-functional displays faced obsolescence in the near future.
In 2023, the program reduced a CCR electromagnetic interference hardening requirement.
“The original KC-135 CCR hardening requirement was established at Level 2 for both the Flight Display System (FDS) and the Fuel System (FS),” AFLCMC said in December 2023. “However, we anticipate the removal of the hardening requirement for the FDS and reduction of the hardening requirement to Level 3 (threshold) and Level 2 (objective) for the FS. Thus, the government supports commercial solutions for the FDS, but expect the FS will require major modifications to meet requirements.”
The week of March 9, U.S. Central Command said that six Air Force personnel died when a KC-135 supporting the Iran operation went down in western Iraq. CENTCOM said that it is investigating the crash, which the command said “was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.