WASHINGTON, D.C.- The Hudson Institute released a report on October 27 that urges the US Air Force to buy 250 medium blended-wing body (BWB) tankers. Its modeling shows the aircraft could refuel more than twice as many force packages as the KC-46A Pegasus.
The recommendation comes as the Air Force prepares to fly a BWB demonstrator in late 2027. The service must also balance future tanker plans against fighter and bomber modernization.
Hudson Wants New Long-Range Tanker Fleet
Timothy A. Walton, a senior fellow, and Shane Dennin, a research fellow, wrote the report at Hudson’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology. It is titled Resilient Reach: Redesigning Aerial Refueling for Contested Global Operations.
The authors find that US aerial refueling depends on “vulnerable forward bases and medium-range tankers that could be neutralized.”
Traditionally during conflicts, the Air Force has launched tankers from uncontested airfields relatively close to bomber and fighter strike objectives. The authors write that the vast distances of the Western Pacific and the long reach of China’s missiles make that approach untenable.
The report says the People’s Liberation Army can already deliver thousands of munitions per day near China.
By 2035, the report says, the PLA could potentially suppress large-scale, sustained tanker operations from forward airfields in the Western Pacific.
The authors add that suppressing “the forward and many of the intermediate airfields that tankers normally rely on” would hobble critical US operations.
They warn that losing the capability “could collapse US air operations and heavily contribute to US defeat in a war against the People’s Republic of China.” The report expects US and allied forces to thin the threat and keep tankers flying from some forward airfields.
Distance also drives fighter demand. Tankers that must stand off from threats force receiver aircraft to burn more fuel in transit and leave them little time on station.
In one Hudson model, a continuous 4-fighter combat air patrol needs 6 F-35As airborne at the shortest tanker distance, and 58 as the distance to the refueling control point grows. Tankers that approach to 300 nautical miles from the patrol need 14 fewer fighters airborne than tankers 600 nautical miles away.
The authors conclude that the Air Force needs tankers that can launch from farther afield and carry more fuel to the fight.
Medium BWB VS KC-46A
BWB aircraft blur the line between wings and fuselage. The design is considered more aerodynamically efficient and has a large cabin and cargo space.
The report concludes that a “medium BWB can refuel more than twice as many force packages or refuel force packages more than twice as far as the KC-46A.”
It adds: “At longer-ranges and higher offloads, the medium BWB can deliver up to five times as many operationally relevant increments of fuel as the KC-46A.”
Hudson evaluated five designs: the KC-46A, the Airbus A330 MRTT+, a medium-sized BWB, a medium-sized reduced signature design, and a collaborative tanker aircraft.
The last 2 would theoretically shuttle fuel from parent tankers such as the KC-46A at short-to-moderate distances. The KC-46A and A330 MRTT+ are medium-range, multirole designs. The medium BWB is a long-range, high-offload dedicated tanker.
| Tanker | Fuel capacity |
|---|---|
| Medium BWB (design target) | 300,000 pounds |
| Airbus A330 MRTT+ | 245,000 pounds |
| KC-46A (maximum) | 212,000 pounds |
The report says the KC-46A has performed well in recent operations but lacks the range, offload and survivability to sustain large-scale refueling across the Indo-Pacific.
It describes the A330 MRTT+ as slightly longer-range but facing similar constraints. Hudson also says a medium BWB’s size, lighter weight and refueling-only design could make it cheaper to buy and operate than larger multirole tankers.
Hudson examined 32 short-, medium- and long-range vignettes in the Pacific, North America, Europe and the Middle East. In general, the medium BWB showed the greatest performance and cost improvement over the KC-46A. Key findings include:
- Speed: Compared with 250 KC-46As, 250 medium BWBs could deploy forces across the Pacific more than twice as fast.
- Airfields: A medium BWB could sustain orbits from more than twice as many airfields as the alternatives.
- Standoff: If a medium BWB carries a robust self-defense suite and flies 100 to 200 nautical miles closer to threats than a KC-46A, sustaining a single F-35A orbit costs the same or less than with reduced signature shuttle designs.
- Fighter wing: For a 72-fighter wing flying from Andersen Air Force Base, $8 billion spent on tankers buys roughly twice as many F-35As on station over Taipei with medium BWBs as with KC-46As or A330 MRTT+s.
- Theater scale: To sustain five F-35A patrols along the First Island Chain, the cheapest shuttle tanking option rises from about $24 billion with forward basing to about $80 billion when only distant airfields are available. The medium BWB option rises from about $21 billion to $34 billion.
The report finds shuttle designs useful for refueling a small number of force packages inside contested airspace.
It says they face limits at scale and depend on vulnerable parent tankers. In the wing scenario, adding the collaborative tanker would cost an extra $4 billion to support five more F-35As. The reduced signature design would cost an extra $12 billion to support 11 more.
Cost, Fleet Mix and Timeline
The report states: “Our proposed plan’s yearly tanker costs would require additional RDTE outlays in the late 2020s and early 2030s, but its total RDTE, procurement, and operations and support costs over 30 years could amount to $15.5 billion less than a plan that solely procured KC-46A.”
Hudson’s modeling credits the BWB plan with 58% more offload capacity than the KC-46A-only plan.
It says the plan could be funded with extra money or within planned annual levels, including a budget-neutral option that trims KC-46A production extension buys to fund BWB development.
The report estimates that a mixed fleet of roughly 260 KC-46s and 250 medium BWB tankers would cost $398 billion over 30 years. Fielding an additional 250 KC-46s for a total fleet of 510 would cost $413 billion.
The report says the 2 aircraft would complement each other: “Together, the force could succeed in its most stressing scenarios, as well as sustainably execute other operations across the world.”
Hudson recommends that the Air Force move forward with the KC-46 production extension contract.
Then, assuming the BWB demonstrator evaluation goes well in 2027 and 2028, the service should direct fiscal 2027 research, development, test and evaluation (RDTE) funding to “mature medium-sized, long-range, high-offload capacity tanker designs, such as medium BWB.”
The Air Force could begin fielding medium BWBs by the mid-2030s “for reasonable RDTE and procurement costs that align with projected budgets, and it could cost considerably less than simply buying more KC-46As,” the report states.
The tanker buy is 1 of 3 actions in Hudson’s holistic approach:
- Airfield resilience: Prioritize military construction and other funding to improve the capacity and resilience of the most important tanker airfields. The report estimates these measures could cost about $35.5 billion, including at least 60 large hardened aircraft shelters at about $3.06 billion.
- Mission systems: Keep increasing funding for command, control, and communications, self-defense, fuel transfer, and automation and autonomy systems for current and future tankers. The report estimates about $13 billion, including $8 billion to outfit a fleet of 260 KC-46s.
- New tankers: Develop and procure 250 medium-sized, long-range, high-offload tankers, such as the medium BWB, which could prove capable of standing in a moderate distance from threats.
JetZero Demonstrator and Air Force’s Tanker Plans
The Air Force committed $235 million in 2023 to a BWB demonstrator with startup JetZero, which is partnering with Northrop Grumman. The award originally targeted a first flight by the first quarter of 2027.
Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, is building the full-scale aircraft in Mojave, California. JetZero said it was 40% complete as of June 2026.
Reports call the demonstrator Z4. JetZero’s own materials call the full-scale demonstrator Jet1 and use Z4 for its roughly 250-seat airliner design.
Air & Space Forces reported that an Air Force spokesperson confirmed the “blended-wing body project is currently active, on schedule, and meeting assembly milestones; the demonstrator’s first flight is scheduled for late 2027.”
JetZero has proposed a tanker variant, dubbed KC-Z4, though the demonstrator will not be a refueler. The Air Force has not selected the Z4 as an operational aircraft.
The Air Force’s future tanker plans are not settled. The Eisenhower-era KC-135 fleet is showing its age, and officials have stressed the need for refuelers that can survive in contested airspace.
The service explored concepts through the Next-Generation Aerial Refueling System (NGAS) program. It shifted gears in the 2027 budget request and said it would focus on protection systems over a new aircraft.
The Air Force still plans to buy up to 75 additional KC-46 Pegasus tankers on top of the current program of record of 188. In May, it signed an agreement with Boeing to fix critical Pegasus issues, such as fielding an improved remote vision system that boom operators use to refuel other aircraft.
Senior leaders have said this must be resolved before the Air Force signs the contract extension for the extra 75 tankers.
Former Air Mobility Command Chief Backs BWB Concept
Retired Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan led Air Mobility Command from 2021 to 2024, said he saw the demonstrator’s potential when it was conceived as a way to reverse the service’s neglect of tanker modernization compared with fifth- and sixth-generation bomber and fighter efforts.
He supports the B-21, F-15EX, F-35 and Collaborative Combat Aircraft. He warned that “if we don’t invest in the enablers to make those things successful, we’re going to look silly on the modern battlefield.”
His belief in the design convinced him to become an advisor to JetZero earlier this year. He described the design’s potential this way: “It’s almost two times everything.” He called the results “quite remarkable.”
Minihan said he was “on the record from my time in uniform as supporting” the medium BWB demonstrator effort. “It fits perfectly into the NGAS concept,” he said. “Every pound of gas I save getting to the fight is a pound of gas I can give away to a fighter or a bomber.”
He also said the Air Force needs “bombers and fighters of fifth and sixth generation, but we generally don’t pay attention to the enabling force until it fails.”
He added: “To think that we can take a four-generation gap between our strike force and our enabling force into combat with a near-peer adversary is a fool’s errand.”
Mitchell Institute Questions Long-Term Funding
Douglas Birkey, executive director of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, also noted the potential benefits of the BWB design. “There is no question the Air Force needs new refueling capacity,” Birkey said.
He added that “the blended-wing body has definite, distinct aerodynamic advantages, being highly efficient to maximize that off-loader range.”
Birkey is skeptical that the Air Force can commit to a long-term funding plan for a next-generation BWB tanker in the current budget environment. The service’s $267.7 billion budget request for fiscal 2027 is $53 billion more than its 2026 budget.
Even so, competing priorities such as the sixth-generation B-21 bomber and F-47 fighter limited any investment in tanker modernization. A new BWB fleet would require larger toplines and reliable funding over the next decade.
“There’s got to be sustained long-term investment; this isn’t a one-year plus-up kind of investment. They need a decade’s worth of solid investment,” Birkey said. “They’re making up for so much underinvestment.”
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