US Air Force Shifts Next-Gen Tanker Request With No KC-46 Successor Picked

“We don’t know what comes after the KC-46,” a senior mobility planner reportedly said. Its budget request shifts tanker money to survivability systems, with no successor aircraft chosen.

A senior Air Mobility Command planner told the Airlift/Tanker Association Symposium in Florida this month that the U.S. Air Force does not know what next-generation tanker comes after its KC-46, FlightGlobal reported.

Col. Derrick McClain, AMC’s deputy director of strategy, plans, requirements and programs, was answering a junior maintenance officer. According to FlightGlobal, the officer asked whether the Boeing KC-46 was a permanent replacement for the Boeing KC-135.

According to FlightGlobal, McClain replied: “We don’t know what comes after the KC-46.”

The exchange, the officer’s identity and the exact question could not be independently confirmed. An official AMC account confirms that McClain spoke at the symposium in Kissimmee, Florida, on Nov. 6. As of Nov. 13, the command’s official coverage of the event did not address the reported exchange.

Why the next-generation tanker question matters

The remark follows a federal watchdog’s finding that the tanker fleet fell short of Air Force standards for years. In a June 10 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said fleet availability and capability fell below Air Force standards from fiscal 2019 through fiscal 2025. It also said existing metrics did not adequately track the tankers’ main job, refueling other aircraft.

The Air Force had 373 KC-135s and 103 KC-46As in early March 2026, the GAO said. The KC-135 holds up to 200,000 pounds of fuel and the KC-46A up to 212,299 pounds.

The Air Force agreed with all four GAO recommendations. As of Nov. 13, GAO’s product page still listed all four as open.

Acquisition chief unconvinced by industry designs

McClain’s reported answer follows doubts that the Air Force’s top acquisition official raised in September.

William D. Bailey is performing the duties of assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics. At the Air & Space Forces Association conference in National Harbor, Maryland, he told reporters he was dissatisfied with industry designs, Defense Daily reported. He described a shift toward systems that protect tankers rather than pursuing a new stealthy aircraft.

“We will be going after how to make the tanker survivable,” Bailey said.

At a separate roundtable the next day, Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, the AMC commander, discussed autonomous aircraft, optionally crewed aircraft and a mix of different systems as possibilities, according to The War Zone. The report described the future tanker’s configuration as unsettled.

Budget request shifts tanker money from NGAS to ATS

The Air Force’s fiscal 2027 budget request moves the money for future tankers to a different budget line.

The April budget tables list no fiscal 2027 request for the Next Generation Air-refueling System, or NGAS, which received $11.9 million in fiscal 2026. Instead, the request includes about $13 million for Advanced Tanker Systems, or ATS. The request also seeks $2.9 billion for B-21 bomber research and development.

The figures are requests, not enacted funding.

In written testimony for a May 13 House Armed Services subcommittee hearing, Bailey and Lt. Gen. David H. Tabor, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, described ATS as a study of mission improvements that could work across several aircraft types.

Defense Daily described the effort to build a new NGAS airframe as over. Five months earlier, in April, an Air Force spokesperson told DefenseScoop that the service was still examining a future tanker while it moved ahead with needed mission systems. Those included connectivity, electronic warfare and defensive capabilities.

Air Force points to ongoing modernization work

The command’s published account of the symposium describes active planning rather than a blank slate. In his presentation, McClain covered sustaining the current fleet, adding new capabilities in the near term and design work on future platforms, including ATS, according to AMC.

“This is a continuous and deliberate effort,” McClain said, according to AMC.

Gen. Ken Wilsbach, the Air Force chief of staff, also spoke at the symposium. In AMC’s account of his keynote, Wilsbach stressed modernization and network integration for both airlift and refueling aircraft. He discussed the Airlift/Tanker Open Mission System and the follow-on Mobility Air Force Nexus program.

FlightGlobal reported that Wilsbach said nothing about tanker modernization in his remarks. That has not been independently confirmed.

The published record shows work and intentions. It does not show that the Air Force has picked a production aircraft to follow the KC-46.

Blended-wing tanker proposals and a demonstrator

Outside analysts are pressing for a new design. In an Oct. 27 Hudson Institute analysis, Timothy A. Walton and Shane Dennin argued that vulnerable forward bases and tankers without enough range could undermine U.S. operations in a conflict with China.

The authors recommended more resilient bases, better mission systems and a medium-sized tanker with longer range and more fuel to give. They compared 250 medium blended-wing-body tankers with 250 KC-46As and estimated their option would cost $15.5 billion less over 30 years. That figure is a study estimate, not a contract price or a flight-test result.

The Air Force is also backing a blended-wing-body demonstrator built by JetZero. In 2023, the company announced a $235 million award over four years through the Defense Innovation Unit to build a full-scale demonstrator. At the time, it projected a first flight by the first quarter of 2027.

In an Oct. 29 report, an Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the demonstrator was on schedule and meeting assembly milestones, with first flight set for late 2027. The demonstrator will not be a tanker. JetZero calls its proposed tanker version the KC-Z4. Retired Gen. Mike Minihan, a former AMC commander, advises JetZero.

Douglas Birkey, executive director of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, questioned whether the Air Force could keep paying for such a tanker over many years.

“They’re making up for so much underinvestment,” Birkey said.

The search for a new tanker airframe goes back several years. The Air Force first asked industry for information on NGAS in 2023 and issued requests on engines and mission systems in 2024. It sought ideas for an NGAS airframe on Aug. 15, 2025.