Air Mobility Plan, 2008 - The Black Vault

KC-10 Roadmap
KC-10 Roadmap
OPR: AMC/A5Q
Weapon System Assessment
The Global Mobility Concept of Operations (GM CONOPS) requires the Mobility Air Forces (MAF)
to provide air refueling capability worldwide, day or night, in adverse weather, with probe/drogue and
boom on the same sortie for US, allied, and coalition military aircraft. Air refueling operations may
be used to support global attack; air bridge; deployment; redeployment; homeland defense; theater
support to Joint, allied, and coalition air forces; and specialized national defense missions. The
KC-10 is uniquely capable of meeting these capability demands; it is used to conduct simultaneous
cargo and air refueling missions using the centerline air refueling drogue or boom, or wingtip drogues.
With its receiver capability, it can be used for force extension operations—the refueling of one tanker
by another tanker—and thus reduce the number of tankers used for deployment support.
The KC-10 represents approximately 10% of the AF tanker fleet. The KC-10A is a commercial
derivative of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 that had 88% of its design and components in
common when delivered in 1981. There are 59 KC-10s in the fleet, assigned to McGuire AFB and
Travis AFB.
(b)(5)
(b)(5)
(b)(5)
The terminated KC-10 Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) program was based on a 1998
GATM operational requirements document (ORD) and was originally designed to address some of
the shortfalls mentioned above. However, continued delays and cost growth in the KC-10 GATM
program, coupled with evolving requirements and obsolescence issues, led AMC to reassess the
modernization plans for the KC-10 fleet. While the original GATM architecture provided processor
growth and throughput to support selected GATM modifications, a significant follow-on development
effort would still have been required to take the platform beyond 2010. The resulting architecture
would have also retained much of the legacy analog equipment and would have created a unique
DC-10-based configuration, limiting commonality with similar commercial fleets. This modification
approach did not address the obsolescence issues and significantly limited the platform’s growth
72
FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (FOUO)
OCT 07