While KC-10 refueling jets have been retired, the Air Force still uses KC-135 Stratotankers, which entered service in 1957, and introduced the KC-46A Pegasus in 2019 as part of efforts to upgrade its aging tankers.
The US Air Force plans to buy over 260 KC-46s from Boeing, with each costing about $200 million. The Stratotankers and Pegasus aircraft have fallen short of readiness standards in recent years.
With a capacity of over 356,000 pounds of fuel, KC-10s could carry nearly twice as much fuel as the KC-135 Stratotanker. However, KC-10s were phased out, while the Air Force still uses KC-135s.
So, why didn’t KC-10s remain in service as long?
“You can ask 10 different people and get 20 different answers to that,” Michael Hurlburt, operations manager at the Air Mobility Command Museum and an Air Force veteran, told Business Insider.
Hurlburt thinks the KC-10’s third engine was partially to blame, since its position above the fuselage on the vertical stabilizer required special scaffolding platforms for inspection before every flight, which he called a “maintenance nightmare.”
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