Man.....You are fast!!

The new tanker will still do what the 135 does most of the day, especially in peacetime...thousands of dry contacts so that receiver aircraft can get their monthly beans. A larger aircraft will never do that better.

Actually the majority of 10 sorties are driving up and down the west coast doing dry contacts too...especially the "Quest" guys.

Actually you missed the point. During peacetime the KC-X will move people and cargo all over the world. The future of the Air Force is training in simulators. Dry contacts will become a thing of the past. We will only fly airplanes to actually do something, just like the airlines. That's the only fiscally responsible way to use our flying hours. Read the white paper I linked to and you'll get a good idea what the SECAF and Transcom CC want in the next tanker.

The "Quest" guys are schoolhouse sorties. Of course they're going to do dry contacts. But they're moving more and more of their training to the Sims. I bet you'll see with the KC-X the complete elimination of "Locals". All training sorties will be done in the Sim.

That things looks awesome.

HA! tactical maneuvering in a tanker...

Come on now. I love the -135 just as much as the next tanker guy, but the reason why it's still flying is because it sat on nuclear alert for the first 30 years of its life. Not because it's a "Boeing". The fact of the matter is, the 135 is starting to show its age. It's falling apart because we've probably used them twice as much in the past 20 years than we did in the first 30. I've seen a big change in reliability just in the past 3 years alone because we're beating the crap out of them. They probably spend 8 months out of the year in the desert, flying 15+ hours a day. LeMay never in a million years imagined his tanker would be sucking Middle Eastern sand through its turbines.

Yes, I'd rather fly a Boeing, but I'll fly anything that pays the bills and better yet, anything that doesn't require me to cancel a sortie because of maintenance issues.

Not to mention the working air conditioning. Really though, the 135 has been a legendary aircraft - no doubt about it. I'm just glad to see that they are on the road to being replaced. I have quite a few friends flying them and I think that safety dictates that we don't literally fly the wings off of the aircraft. As for the EADS being the supplier, I think its great that our brand new aircraft will be partially paid for using EU taxpayer dollars. Serves them right!

To their peril. Navy has moved alot to the sims, lots of dome carrier landing practice, weapons (dropping bombs, etc) but only can truly practiced on the real thing, getting gas in crappy wx from any tanker can be practiced in sims, but to find the real hackers, you gotta go live. My dad at 79 could land on the ship in the sim consistently and wasn't a pilot, but doubt he could do it for real in the real environment. Skill sets are learned well in a sim, but experience and predictability must be gained real. Some stuff is for a sales job. <g>

Agreed...but the elimination of local sorties, I fail to see how that would be a good thing, especially with the number of tankers flown by the Guard/Reserve...So in the KC-45 for a Traditional Reservist/Guardsman or ART to get some real stick time, they have to go TDY...fan-freaking-tastic.