SpArK
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Meet the Boeing NewGen Tanker
Why? Part of the secret to its success is that the NewGen Tanker is the right size for the job.
The NewGen Tanker delivers widebody capabilities in a narrowbody footprint, which increases fuel offload, gives our military commanders flexible options, and reduces costs.
The graphic posted below tells the story. The NewGen Tankers footprint is similar to the KC-135, but the NewGen Tanker is capable of offloading significantly more fuel while carrying more cargo, passengers, and aeromedical patients. That enables our warfighters to park more tankers with more capability on each base, deploying them quickly, efficiently, and effectively.
By contrast, Airbuss A330 tanker takes up 53% more ramp space than the NewGen Tanker and is 30 tons heavier. That means that fewer A330-based tankers can fit on limited airfields at critical bases, limiting mission planners options and forcing them to launch refueling missions from far-away bases, wasting time and fuel. Flying more miles means that the A330-based tanker will require more maintenance and cost billions more to operate. Its larger size will also demand costly modifications to infrastructure such as hangars and runways at military bases across the globe.
All these costs add up to real money. An independent study by AeroStrategy Management Consulting in August 2010 determined that the Boeing 767 (on which the NewGen Tanker is based) is 20-25 percent less expensive to own and operate over a 40-year life cycle than the Airbus A330, saving taxpayers upwards of $36 billion. Thats roughly the sticker price of buying the first 179 tanker aircraft.
By packing more fuel, cargo, and passenger capacity than exists in the KC-135 into a narrow body footprint, the NewGen Tanker gives American warfighters real capability that they can use in real combat situations, deployed efficiently and effectively.
Its just part of the reason that we say the NewGen Tanker is the most capable, survivable, combat-ready tanker at the lowest cost for the taxpayer.
