A test plane from Boeing’s new aerial refueling tanker program took off from Boeing Field International in Seattle fitted with a refueling boom Tuesday afternoon.
The plane is not the final KC-46 model that Boeing is under contract to deliver to the U.S. Air Force in 2017. It is an interim model, called a 767-2C, being used to speed up the certification process. The plane flew once in late December and resumed test flights on May 28.
Tuesday’s flight is the program’s first to incorporate the boom, which is based on the one used on the Air Force’s KC-10 tanker. The airplane took off from Boeing Field International at 3:10 p.m. and headed for Moses Lake followed by a Boeing chase plane, a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, according to online flight tracking websites.
The aircraft are scheduled to fly to Paine Field near Everett late Tuesday afternoon.
A Boeing spokesman with the program declined to comment on the flight.
The fully militarized KC-46 is slated to have its first flight later this summer, at least six months later than Boeing had originally scheduled it.
The program is still on track to meet its next contractual deadline, which is to deliver 18 combat-ready tankers to the Air Force in August 2017, a Boeing spokesman said last week.
Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.
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