Oh to be a fly on the wall in the room where the Japanese MoD/JASDF are talking about what they really think about it
If somebody wrote a book or filmed a movie, it would flop. Nobody would believe it.
This is the saga of the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus.
Thirty years of warnings, a corruption scandal, a protested contest, a fixed-price contract that blew a hole in Boeing, Category I defects on delivery day, two boom failures — including one that snapped off an F-22 and fell into the Atlantic — and we still have not replaced even half the KC-135 fleet.
The line is running about 15 a year. Readiness is still in the 60s.
You don’t cross the Pacific on a 62-percent of a tanker.
(Photo credit: Boeing photo illustration, Neg. #: MCF10-015)