KC-46A Pegasus

01 / Program record

The promise, the revisions, and the missing milestone

The February 2011 award announcement described a development contract worth more than $3.5 billion, four initial aircraft, a planned fleet of 179, and the first 18 by 2017. GAO supplies the precise original commitment: 18 operational aircraft, nine Wing Aerial Refueling Pod (WARP) shipsets and two spare engines by August 2017, with required training and support in place. The current MSAR further specifies aircraft meeting the final product baseline and pods delivered in final configuration. A count of accepted aircraft cannot independently satisfy that definition. K07 · original announcement, K02 · printed p. 5, K01 · p. 15, note 3

These are three different reference positions. February 2011 is the original schedule reported by GAO; January 13, 2017 is the production baseline displayed by the current MSAR; May 27, 2022 is APB Change 3. The 2017 baseline is not relabeled as the original promise. The MSAR reports that RAA missed its December 2023 threshold and the full-rate production decision missed September 2024. Its current schedule cells for both milestones are blank. We do not manufacture dates from those blanks. K02 · Table 2, K01 · pp. 11–12, 15

IOC did happen, but it did not close RAA. The Air Mobility Command commander declared initial operational capability on December 23, 2024, effective October 4. The report explicitly says that declaration did not directly change program-office milestones; WARP delays still prevented RAA. GAO’s July 2026 assessment also preserves this distinction. Likewise, low-rate production, full-rate approval, completion of initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E), and full operational capability are not interchangeable. K01 · p. 8, K04 · printed pp. 20, 89

The MSAR describes APB Change 4 as approved by the program executive officer but still in final coordination with the acquisition executive, while the team considered schedule acceleration. This review did not establish a subsequently signed superseding APB, an achieved RAA, or a full-rate decision. That is a bounded evidence gap, not proof that no later record exists. Q4 calendar 2027 WARP delivery is a forecast for a milestone driver—not a substitute RAA date. K01 · pp. 10–12

02 / Program record

A dated program history

Dates below distinguish commitments, actual reported events and future targets. A past deadline is not an accomplished event. Government acceptance on January 10, 2019 and first operating-base delivery on January 25 are also kept separate. K01 · p. 13

1. Feb 24, 2011Contract

   Reported event

   Development award

   Original program targeted 179 tankers and the first 18 by 2017; GAO specifies the full RAA package due August 2017. K07

2. Aug 2016Decision

   Reported event

   Low-rate production approved

   Production approval followed testing; it did not mean full-rate production or final capability had been achieved. K01

3. Aug 2017Decision

   Original commitment

   Original RAA deadline

   Required package: 18 fully configured aircraft, nine WARP shipsets and two spare engines. This is a missed commitment, not an actual delivery. K02

4. Jan 10, 2019Delivery

   Reported event

   First government acceptance

   First aircraft accepted January 10; first operating-base delivery to McConnell followed January 25. K01

5. Oct 2019Test

   Reported event

   IOT&E start milestone

   Formal milestone recorded in October; dedicated testing began in May. The MSAR disagrees by one day within October. K01

6. Apr 2, 2020Decision

   Reported event

   RVS 2.0 redesign agreed

   No-additional-government-cost redesign/retrofit agreement targeted initial fielding in 2023. A forecast, not a delivered fix. K08

7. May 27, 2022Decision

   Reported event

   APB Change 3 signed

   RAA objective June 2023 / threshold December 2023; FRP March 2024 / September 2024. These remain visible after breaches. K01

8. Sep 14, 2022Decision

   Reported event

   Worldwide deployment clearance

   AMC cleared combatant-command taskings; official release also records an operationally tasked F-15E refueling mission. K09

9. Oct 4, 2024Decision

   Reported event

   IOC effective date

   AMC declaration dated December 23 made IOC effective October 4; it did not declare the RAA package complete. K01

10. Nov 14, 2025Test

    Reported event

    RVS 2.0 first flight

    Functional-check and no-contact test campaign began on a modified test aircraft, not a fleet retrofit. K01

11. Nov 25, 2025Contract

    Reported event

    Lot 12 ordered

    15 aircraft; MSAR reports $2.46993734775bn action and obligation. K16

12. Mar 2026Delivery

    Reported event

    eRVS fleet installation completed

    Software/firmware-only enhanced RVS completed its last three retrofits. eRVS is not the redesigned RVS 2.0. K01

13. Apr 2, 2026Contract

    Reported event

    BTAR funding increased

    MSAR records $12m in additional value and obligations for redesign overrun funding. K01

14. Apr 3, 2026Delivery

    Reported event

    105th aircraft reported

    An AMC release reports the 105th US aircraft; the MSAR separately totals four development and 101 procurement deliveries. K06

15. May 12, 2026Decision

    Reported event

    Readiness and retrofit plan announced

    Plan repurposes five early-build aircraft, accelerates fleet retrofit and pursues temporary logistics support; projected gains are not measured results. K10

16. Jun 3, 2026Test

    Reported event

    Company reports initial RVS 2.0 test phase complete

    Modified test-aircraft milestone; certification, operational test and fleet fielding are separate. K11

17. Q4 CY2027Delivery

    Forecast

    WARP delivery target

    Reviewed MSAR target for final-configured pod shipsets; not an achieved RAA date. K01

18. Early 2028Delivery

    Forecast

    RVS 2.0 fielding target

    Later Air Force announcement schedules fielding to begin in early 2028. K10

03 / Program record

The money: lower estimates do not settle performance

The government’s current acquisition estimate is below the original comparable-dollar baseline. That finding can coexist with schedule delay, contractor losses and operational limitations. It is not a finding that money has been returned or that the program met its requirements. The MSAR’s original-baseline comparison converts the current estimate into constant 2011 dollars; its later-baseline comparison uses constant 2016 dollars. We keep those comparisons separate. K01 · pp. 26, 28

Scope also changed: the original 179 aircraft were four development plus 175 procurement aircraft; the current program is 188: four plus 184. A unit-cost change combines a changing estimate with a changing denominator, not the price of an additional bare airframe. The MSAR reports original-comparison program acquisition unit cost down 25.80%, and the later-baseline comparison down 12.35%, using its stated price bases. GAO separately describes an up-to-75-aircraft production extension established in June 2025. Those prospective aircraft are not silently added to this edition’s 188-aircraft denominator or acquisition estimate. DOT&E’s retrospective 183-aircraft description is not used to override the newer quantity record. K01 · pp. 9, 26, 28, K04 · printed p. 89, K03 · printed p. 237

For scale, the MSAR’s $43.2765 billion then-year acquisition estimate comprises $6.2959 billion RDT&E, $34.5676 billion procurement and $2.4130 billion military construction. It is an estimate across years, not a cumulative obligation, outlay, contractor revenue or lifetime acquisition-plus-sustainment bill. It is not compared directly with an original constant-dollar total. K01 · p. 26

Selected fiscal funding, with the stage attached

The P-1 separates the aircraft-buy line from modifications; the R-1 supplies the entire named program element. FY2026 amounts above are the exhibits’ discretionary enacted funding position; FY2027 amounts are requests, not enacted appropriations or contracts. The two aircraft-buy rows both cover 15 aircraft, but their funding includes more than an airframe unit price. PE 0401221F is not independently allocated here among original-program work, upgrades and extension activity. These six rows are not a complete program ledger. K12 · split P-1 pages, K13 · R-1 line 117

The MSAR’s page 50 summary labels $43.2765 billion as both total acquisition appropriations and appropriations to date, showing 100%, while its supplement still contains FY2027 procurement. We do not present that percentage as independently verified completion of congressional funding. Its separate $31.4381 billion “expenditures” value is a source-reported acquisition aggregate, not a reconciled transaction-level spending total in this edition. Those labels remain inspectable in the original; their limitations are not hidden by a precise-looking grand total. K01 · pp. 50, 63

04 / Program record

Contracts: fixed price has a boundary

The original development contract limited government liability with a $4.9 billion ceiling, subject to the requirements boundary described by GAO. That ceiling is not the February 2011 announcement’s initial value, not the cost of the whole program, and not a blanket ceiling covering every later change. In 2020, the Air Force said its RVS 2.0 redesign/retrofit agreement would meet contract requirements at no additional government cost. The same release separately described releasing $882 million of previously withheld payments; releasing a withholding is not a fresh aircraft purchase. K02 · printed p. 5, K07, K08 · two MOAs

The later Boom Telescope Actuator Redesign (BTAR) effort is explicitly cost-plus-fixed-fee, even though it sits under the same master contract number as the aircraft work. The MSAR reports scope additions and development overruns, including the April 2, 2026 $12 million increase and obligation. Its BTAR effort table gives a $135.5 million current target and a $209.7 million program-manager estimate at completion; these are not cash spent and are not added to the selected actions as another purchase. This is why “Boeing pays every additional KC-46 dollar” is too broad. K01 · pp. 38–39

The Lot 11 identifier/date discrepancy stays visible. The official November 21, 2024 contract announcement identifies P00326 and an exact $2.389323828 billion value/obligation. The MSAR instead calls its Lot 11 entry P00327, November 22, with a rounded $2.4 billion. The evidence reviewed does not resolve whether these describe adjacent administrative actions or a reporting error. We retain the announcement’s selected action, disclose the alternative, and do not count two 15-aircraft purchases. K14 · AIR FORCE entry, K01 · p. 44

Contract scope, award date, fiscal funding year and delivery date differ. This selection illustrates major development/production and support commitments; it is not all contracts, modifications, subcontracts or award obligations. It is intentionally not summed into “total program spending.”

05 / Program record

Delivery is real. So are the operating limits.

A delivery observation, not a readiness score

The MSAR’s delivery table reconciles four development plus 101 procurement aircraft to 105, against 113 planned to date. Its executive summary places 105 at April 2026; an April 13 AMC article describes the 105th aircraft’s April 3 arrival. Eight fewer aircraft than that dated plan does not mean eight fewer operationally available tankers. No verified September 12 delivery total is claimed, and Japan/Israel deliveries are excluded. K01 · pp. 10, 50, K06

The zero-filled operational inventory table is not a zero-aircraft finding. The report says some fielding information was removed from the public version. This edition therefore stores operational inventory as unknown/withheld, not zero. It also does not reinterpret that table’s “first operational delivery: FY2023” label as negating the separately documented 2019 acceptance/base deliveries. GAO’s sustainment report uses annual-average inventory figures in its chart and an early-March point-in-time count in a note; those are not directly comparable with an April cumulative delivery total. K01 · pp. 13, 50–51, K05 · Figure 3 notes

What 55.7% does—and does not—measure

The MSAR defines operational availability (Ao) using total inventory, excluding depot-possessed and non-mission-capable aircraft from the available numerator. Its March 2026 observation of 55.7% is 24.3 percentage points below the 80% threshold. It is not “55.7% of the aircraft delivered,” not a fuel-transfer success rate, and not the September mission-capable rate. K01 · p. 17

The definition boundary matters over time. Beginning in January 2025, AMC directed that KC-46As unable to perform their primary refueling mission be designated non-mission capable even when other missions remained possible. The MSAR specifically describes inability to refuel via the boom. A simple before/after readiness chart could therefore mix a change in fleet performance with a change in reporting. GAO also cautions that fully mission capable (all missions), mission capable (at least one under general definitions), and refueling-specific capability measure different things. Its public report omits specific historical annual rates; we do not reconstruct them. K01 · p. 17, K05 · metrics and January 2025 memorandum discussion

Useful missions are not final test closure

The September 2022 worldwide-deployment approval followed an exercise that included real combat-zone taskings. AMC reported 206 flight hours and 1.46 million pounds offloaded to 66 aircraft. That is evidence of useful work, not merely a plan. In a different evidentiary lens, DOT&E’s FY2025 report says the tanker can refuel 26 of 27 candidate receiver types, with restrictions by environment and configuration, and that 85% of planned IOT&E flight-test data had been collected. It still could not complete the remaining events before final RVS and BTAR upgrades. Those percentages do not describe the same denominator or certify 85% of the aircraft’s capability. K09, K03 · printed p. 237

The MSAR identifies A-10 refueling as prohibited, RVS visual/depth-perception issues, and boom stiffness capable of binding in a receiver receptacle. It also distinguishes demonstrated multipoint refueling from production WARP articles that were not yet acceptable because of airworthiness and quality issues. This report describes the public oversight findings; it does not independently evaluate an aircraft’s safety or suitability. K01 · pp. 9, 19, 23–24

06 / Program record

The next fixes are forecasts, not receipts

eRVS and RVS 2.0 are not the same upgrade. The MSAR says the software/firmware-only enhanced RVS fleet installation finished in March 2026. RVS 2.0 is a redesigned system with its own certification and testing. A November 14, 2025 first flight began the functional/no-contact campaign; Boeing’s June 3, 2026 first-phase completion announcement is company-reported test progress, not completed operational evaluation or fleet retrofit. K01 · p. 9, K11

Preserve the successive commitments: the April 2020 agreement targeted initial RVS 2.0 fielding in 2023; the reviewed MSAR forecasts late-calendar-2027 capability release; the May 12, 2026 Air Force announcement schedules fielding to begin in early 2028. Capability release and the start of fielding need not be identical events, so this edition does not subtract them as though they were. Neither is an accomplished fleet fix. K08, K01 · p. 9, K10 · Accelerating RVS 2.0 Retrofits

The May plan also repurposes five early-build aircraft, proposes bundling retrofits with depot maintenance, and pursues temporary performance-based logistics. Its projected availability gains and accelerated retrofit schedule are plans with protected details, not measured improvements established here. We do not apply a projected percentage gain mechanically to the separate March 55.7% Ao figure. Final configuration, certification, operational-test closure and a dated follow-up performance result would each supply a different missing receipt. K10

Other unresolved boundaries are deliberate:

• No complete cash ledger or current ready-fleet count. Budgets, action values, estimates, delivery totals and withheld inventory do not form one additive dataset.
• No invented exact current RAA/FRP date. The reviewed schedule table leaves both blank, despite narrative forecasts for the underlying fixes.
• No silently repaired source contradictions. The MSAR’s October IOT&E start differs by one day between table and note; we use the month. Lot 11’s modification/date conflict remains visible. The cover says April 21 but contract blocks include May 13–14 reporting dates. HTTP Last-Modified is not the original publication date. K01 · pp. 1, 15, 44, 47
• No full operational-effectiveness declaration inferred from a retrospective report. DOT&E said it would issue its final assessment after IOT&E completion. This review did not establish a subsequent final report. K03 · printed p. 237

07 / Program record

How to read this edition

Research cutoff is not the date of every observation. We reviewed the official FY2027 MSAR, FY2027 P-1/R-1, GAO’s July acquisition assessment and June sustainment report, and DOT&E’s FY2025 chapter; checked the historical original commitment; and searched official Air Force, AMC, acquisition and contract sources for newer deliveries, readiness, testing and upgrade milestones. Contractor statements are labeled as such. This is a bounded source check, not a claim that every public record was discovered.

The existing same-day primary PDF receipts supplied the MSAR and oversight evidence; relevant table pages were read as images as well as extracted text. Fresh P-1 and R-1 downloads matched the stored hashes. The public GAO sustainment HTML and Boeing test update were retrieved directly. Several government sites returned 403 on direct recheck, while official browser retrieval supplied readable material. The historic Lot 11 body was available as official indexed text but not reliably through the redirected reader; the source card discloses that limit. Failed responses are not hashed as though they were documents.

This edition’s comparisons keep price basis, fiscal year, scope and funding stage together. An unknown is not zero; a forecast is not a baseline or actual; a declaration is not an independent test assessment. The collection methods define the shared terms, and the corrections page explains how later evidence is handled. The exact primary URLs below remain portable in the downloaded report.

08 / Program record

Source appendix

All sources were reviewed September 12, 2026. PDF page references are explicitly distinguished from printed page numbers where they differ. A source’s date, event date, reporting period, retrieval date and HTTP metadata are not collapsed into one “last updated” label. The JSON download includes exact claim locators and available original-receipt hashes. We link the publisher’s material and do not reproduce incidental personal contact details or third-party photographs.

09 / Program record

Edition history

September 12, 2026 · 1.0 — First complete KC-46A edition. Added original/revised commitments, selected estimates and funding/contract records, delivery-versus-performance analysis, current upgrade forecasts, explicit gaps and the primary-source appendix. The collection also retains MQ-25 edition 1.0. No live monitoring, automatic update schedule or Sentinel edition is implied.