CATEGORY: INNOVATION IN OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
Balancing Warfighter Combat Demands Amid Full Fleet Divestment … and Winning by BILLY HASSELL, U.S. AIR FORCE In the final years of the KC-10 Extender’s life as a premier Air Refueling platform for the Department of Defense (DoD), many would imagine a slow and predictable path for all 59 KC-10 aircraft to the pasture at the Air Force’s “Boneyard” in Tucson, Arizona. For many DoD program offices, this final phase of the Acquisition Life Cycle is never witnessed by most personnel with platforms continuing to operate well over their expected life span and over multiple generations of government employees. But for the KC-10 System Program Office (SPO) located at Tinker Air Force Base (AFB), Oklahoma, and part of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC), the final phase of the acquisition cycle experience was far from this peaceful paradigm.
KC-10 Elephant Walk, Travis AFB, Calif. Source: USAF photo
Divestment Challenges With the final KC-10 aircraft retirement directed to complete by 30 September 2024, multiple seismic acquisition and operational hurdles befell the KC-10 SPO in this massive challenge to dispose of 59 aircraft, $625 million inven- tory valuation, 2.9 million parts while shuttering operating and sustainment locations in the Netherlands, Hawaii, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Canada, North Carolina, Florida, New Jersey and California. Acquisition Challenge 1. In July 2020, the KC-10 SPO divested the first KC-10 aircraft after four years of Air Force and congressional delays, and weathered disruptive in-year of execution funding, manpower, facilities, and operational disconnects at every KC-10 operating and sustainment locations every year. Acquisition Challenge 2. At the start of Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22), Congressional Armed Services Committees directed a U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) study, halting all Tanker divestments for five-months. This caused six missed Boneyard induction slots, adding high risk to the divestment critical path, and required the first ever on-ramp XJ-Status preservations of the massive KC-10 Aircraft. Acquisition Challenge 3. The Armed Services Committees then enacted a Congressionally mandated Tanker Floor of 466 aircraft. This Law basically tied every KC-10 retirement to every single KC-46 Pegasus delivery, further burdening the critical path of the KC-10 divestment with any delays to KC-46 acquisition plan. Operational Challenge 1. With an Initial Operational Capability (IOC) date of 1981, the 43-year-old KC-10 faced numerous Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortage (DMSMS) crises as an aging platform. Operational Challenge 2. Federal Express (FEDEX) also concurrently retired their commercial DC-10 fleet, with their final flight on 31 December 2022. This corporate decision impacted the KC-10 sustainment by inducing accelerated vendor shutdowns, affecting multiple zones of the KC-10 for the next two years. (Source: https://avgeekery.com/ fedex-retires-the-md-10/)
May-June 2025 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION
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