The Boeing team now will conduct a post-flight inspection and calibrate instrumentation prior to the next series of flights, during which the tanker boom and WARPs systems will be deployed.
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Boeing and the U.S. Air Force launched a company-built KC-46A Pegasus tanker Friday for the aircraft’s maiden flight and in preparation of its aerial refueling test flights with other military aircraft later this year.
It was the first flight of a fully-configured plane, although the first test aircraft in the U.S. Air Force program, a modified 767, first flew last December and has completed 150 hours of test flight since then. Furthermore, in the subsequent stage, KC-46 will conduct live aerial refueling to various US Air Force aircraft before the end of this year.
“Today’s flight reinforces that we are moving in the right direction and are on track to begin planned Milestone C testing later this year”, stated Tim Peters, Boeing KC-46 tanker vice president and program manager.
Boeing received the contract in fiscal year 2011, under which it will design and manufacture four test aircraft, two having 767-2C and two KC-46 tanker configuration.
Col. Christopher Coombs, the program manager of the USAF KC-46 System, said in the press release that the first flight of the tanker plane is a milestone.
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Engineering and manufacturing development (EMD)-2 made the milestone sortie some four months after it completed its initial airworthiness flight equipped with an aerial refuelling boom and wing refuelling pods. It can also carry passengers, cargo and patients. “This flight represents progress and brings us a step closer to fielding this much-needed aircraft”, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said in a statement.
