Ramona Adams
The U.S. Air Force and Boeing conducted flight tests of a company-built KC-46A Pegasus refueling aircraft from March 7 to 10 at Travis Air Force Base in California.
A team composed of 48 Boeing employees and four Air Force personnel performed ground and flight tests during the four-day event, the military branch said Monday.
Capt. Dylan Neidorff, an Air Force test operations engineer, said the KC-46A program selected Travis AFB for military and Federal Aviation Administration certification tests since the base has the ideal temperature for demonstrations.
The Air Force identified Travis AFB and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst as preferred locations for the next active-duty-led bases for KC-46A tankers.
The service branch expects to receive the first KC-46A planes at McConnell AFB and Altus AFB in fall 2017.
KC-46A is designed to refuel multiple U.S., allied and coalition military aircraft platforms; carry passengers and cargo; and detect, avoid and defeat adversarial threats.
