Air Force hedges on next-gen tanker plans

Tomorrow’s tankers might just be today’s tankers with self-protection gear, Air Force officials say—because the service can’t afford to pursue all its next-generation plans.

The Air Force has been devising plans to develop a future tanker called the Next Generation Air Refueling System, or NGAS, to use in contested operations in the Indo-Pacific, as China develops new counter-air systems that can threaten tankers at longer ranges. 

But building a new tanker from scratch doesn’t look possible any time soon, so the service might resort to simply enhancing its current fleet of tankers, said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.

“Unfortunately, any new design cannot be fielded for several years at best, even if affordable. Other options include various ways of increasing the resilience of the current force. The need for improved connectivity and some degree of enhanced self-protection measure appears to be attractive from both an affordability and cost-effectiveness perspective. It’s also something that can be accomplished in relatively short time frames at relatively low cost,” Kendall said Friday at the service’s annual Airlift/Tanker Association Symposium.  

The service plans to wrap up a study on NGAS and finish a review of the service’s sixth-generation fighter jet program, called Next Generation Air Dominance, by the end of the year, to inform the service’s 2026 budget request. Leaders paused the next-gen fighter program so they can take another look at cost projections, new threats, and the advent of other technologies, like new robot wingmen called collaborative combat aircraft. 

The designs of all three of these new programs—NGAS, NGAD, and CCAs—are tied together, from an operational and cost perspective, Kendall said. But as things stand today, he said, there’s not enough money to buy them all. 

“The variable that concerns me most as we go through this analysis and produce a range of alternatives is going to be the availability of adequate resources to pursue any combination of those new designs. Right now, given our commitments, our resources and strategic priorities, it's hard for me to see how we can afford any combination of those new designs,” Kendall said. 

Officials have warned that the 2026 budget will be even tighter than 2025, as other programs like the Sentinel ICBM replacement, are costing far more than initially projected, creating uncertainty around the service’s next-gen aircraft programs.

Funding the Space Force, modernizing both Air Force legs of the nuclear triad, building robust air base defense, and attacking adversaries' long-range kill chains are the service’s top budget priorities, Kendall said.

“All of these are absolutely essential for the success of the Air Force and Space Force and the joint force, and all of them require substantial increased investments…notice that I haven't mentioned either NGAS or NGAD yet,” Kendall said.