Boeing KC-46 Tanker to Miss Delivery Date Again

Boeing’s KC-46 tanker development is turning into an expensive embarrassment for the company, as its delivery date has now been pushed back for a third time while many deficiencies remain unresolved. (USAF photo)

Boeing Co. won’t deliver its first KC-46 aerial refueling tanker by month’s end as it had agreed, according to U.S. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, the latest in a procession of missed deadlines since the company won the contract in 2011.

Air Force officials are meeting with the planemaker Wednesday “to try to lay down the path forward for delivery and to make sure the deficiencies that have been identified are taken care of in a way that brings that aircraft in as promised,” Wilson told editors and reporters in a roundtable at Bloomberg headquarters in New York.

The Air Force and Boeing had anticipated delivery October 27 of the first of the tankers, supposedly settling a disagreement over timing for the much-delayed $44.3 billion program. That first of 179 tankers was originally supposed to be delivered in April to June of 2016.

While the tanker still has unresolved deficiencies with its system for midair refueling, the latest delivery date “slippage really was directly attributable” to the need to wait for certification by the Federal Aviation Administration in September that the aircraft’s refueling and mission avionics system met agency standards, Wilson said. It was “a little later than they expected,” she said of Boeing. (end of excerpt)

Click here for the full story, on the Bloomberg News website.

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