The Air Force wants to modernize air refueling, but it's been a bumpy ride

The KC-10 tanker is a flying gas station, a cargo aircraft capable of offloading thousands of pounds of fuel into receptacles atop planes like the Raptor. Holed up in a cozy compartment in the tanker’s rear, a human watches through a rear-facing window to operate the telescoping delivery system. This is how the Air Force has handled refueling for decades: with a person like Dewsnap looking out through glass at a thirsty plane. But KC-10s like the one we’re flying for this training mission in November of 2021—and the KC-135s the Pentagon deployed to the EU just this week—are at a point of transition: The KC-10 is set to be retired over the next two years, with the KC-135 flying off into the sunset sometime long thereafter. The intended replacement, called the KC-46, relies on a higher-tech tactic: A remote-vision solution will replace Dewsnap’s rear window. Someday, tankers like this could do away with boom operators entirely in favor of partially, or fully, robotic systems.
Between the KC-10s and the KC-135s, “we have a small fleet that’s old, and we have a large fleet that’s extremely old,” Harrison says. In the KC-135s—which despite their advanced age will stay in service for many more years for logistical reasons (although some will be retired as new aircraft come online)—boom operators lay down at the rear of the aircraft and look out through windows at the scene below them. But while they’re slightly newer, the Air Force is retiring the KC-10s first: There are far fewer of them (just 47) than the KC-135s, so it’s easier for the military to phase them out, in part because smaller fleets are more expensive to maintain on a per-plane basis. The KC-10s will fly only through 2024.