United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) provides the U.S. military the capability to operate globally through aerial refueling.
“When you see any of these fighter or bomber strikes across the globe, you can guarantee there’s a tanker involved, and they wouldn’t have been able to accomplish the missions without it,” Colonel Cory Damon, Commander of the 22nd Air Refueling Wing said during a November 2024 interview with Forbes.
The KC-135 Stratotanker and the KC-46 Pegasus enable forces to reach these corners by transferring fuel — either through a rigid “flying” boom or flexible drogues — to U.S. warplanes during flight. The KC-135 can carry up to 200,000 pounds of fuel and replenish multiple aircraft during a single mission. The more modern KC-46, which is based on the Boeing 767 commercial airliner, offers even more fuel capacity as well as advanced communication and navigation systems. This is essential for long-range strategic bombers such as the B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit, which are designed to deliver both conventional and nuclear payloads.
USTRANSCOM, headquartered at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, is responsible for carrying out global transportation and logistics operations for the U.S. Department of Defense. One of its key tasks is managing the aerial refueling assets that enable bombers to carry out missions well beyond their operational range without the need to land to refuel.
The integration of these tankers into bomber missions requires precise coordination and planning. Once the tanker and bomber link up and fuel starts flowing, the aircraft are only meters away from each other, and boom operators have a narrow window of time and space to properly hook up to start the refueling process.In the KC-46, an operator controls the boom remotely from just behind the cockpit using a 3-D monitor. In the older KC-135, the operator controls the boom from the rear of the plane. A successful refueling is crucial to U.S. mission success and enables crews to undertake training flights that simulate real-world scenarios:
• During an early-2025 BTF mission to Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford, three KC-135 Stratotankers from the 100th Air Refueling Wing refueled two B-52 Stratofortresses.
• During early 2024, a KC-135 Stratotanker from the 22nd Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron at Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan, refueled two B-1B Lancers en route to bombing missions in Iraq and Syria.
The range and flexibility of missions enabled by aerial tankers serves as a powerful deterrent to potential adversaries. “Not only are we one of the most flexible legs of the nuclear triad, but it’s just a really easy way for the Air Force and the U.S. to assure our Allies,” Capt. Bo Cain, told CNN. “We (can) have a B-52 where you need it, when you need it, within 48 hours.”