SEATTLE -- Since wresting the Air Force KC-46 tanker contract away from rival Airbus in 2011, Boeing has struggled through $1 billion in cost overruns and written off $1.7 billion in costs to fix multiple design problems.
Yet company officials, leading journalists on a tour of its tanker facilities in Everett, Wash., last week, offered assurances that the program is now on track.
"We expect to hand it over late this year," said Boeing's KC-46 program manager Mike Gibbons about the first of the modified 767s.
Journalists got an up-close look for the first time at the new boom the tanker uses to deliver fuel, which has now proved itself more than 1,000 times in flight-test contacts with refueling aircraft.
A test pilot and a boom operator described new features of the air-to-air refueling system and how it's been working during flight tests.
Gibbons said the design is final and only certification testing remains, giving him "good confidence" that Boeing's tanker troubles are finally behind it.
The first tanker to be delivered to the Air Force should be ready to fly around October and will be delivered to the Air Force soon after, he said.
That implies a very compressed schedule for follow-on deliveries, would appear to be a daunting challenge for the company.
A March report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said Boeing is committed to hand over 18 operational tankers to the Air Force by February 2018.
The first four production tankers are undergoing very extensive rework to incorporate changes to the design that came after the planes were initially assembled.
Gibbons said Boeing is determined to deliver those 18 initial tankers to the Air Force fully operational and with all modifications complete by the deadline.
The Air Force wants 179 of Boeing's air-to-air refueling tankers, which are based on a customized version of the 767 commercial jet. The full contract, worth more than $40 billion to Boeing, has faced numerous setbacks and delays.
The government capped the development cost of the program at $4.9 billion, but according to the Government Accountability Office report Boeing has already spent about $1 billion above that ceiling. It has to swallow that cost overrun and hope for profits later.
At the south end of Paine Field in Everett, Boeing has allocated all of a huge aircraft modification center exclusively to the tanker. One of the four planes on display last week, unlike the others, was already painted when it got to the modification center, a sign that it had arrived in a more complete state.
Completing certification of the aircraft by the Federal Aviation Administration "is our current challenge," Gibbons said.
"The certification effort is going along more slowly than originally anticipated," he said. "But the design is very good and very stable."
Ron "Taco" Johnston, an ex-military pilot who also flew 767s for United Airlines, is the chief test pilot on Boeing's tanker program.
He said that from a pilot's perspective, despite the large boom sticking out the back like some insect proboscis, the jet handles just like any commercial 767.
Boeing has made more than 1,000 refueling contacts with multiple aircraft, from small fighters to big transport planes, and dispensed 30,000 gallons of fuel during test flights.
The KC-46 tanker has also itself received fuel from the bigger, older-model KC-10 tanker.
The plane has elaborate protection systems so that it's capable of flying into a combat zone. It has infrared and radio-frequency equipment that can either bathe an incoming missile in radiated heat to throw it off its trajectory, or jam its electronics.
In addition, the pilot is linked into the Air Force situational awareness network, which means instruments will indicate which other planes are in the vicinity, what's on the ground, and whether an enemy radar has locked on to the plane's position.
And Johnston explained how, given a combat alert, the crew can push a button on the bottom of the fuselage to start the auxiliary power unit that will turn on the aircraft's systems, then enter the jet through a hatch, climb up a ladder into the cockpit, and take off in just 10 minutes.
The Air Force is mightily impressed with the tanker's capabilities, the Boeing officials said.
The difficult task ahead is getting the planes built to the new schedule and without more profit-zapping overruns.
SundayMonday Business on 05/21/2017