Gen. Carlton Everhart, head of the Air Mobility Command, has said he has asked the Defense Department’s new innovation office and defense contractors to offer ideas for a new electronic “cloaking” device for the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of aerial refueling aircraft, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Anthony Capaccio writes Everhart told Bloomberg in a Tuesday interview that he wants the service branch’s Boeing-built KC-46, KC-135 and other aerial tankers to be equipped with a cloaking tool designed to reduce the profiles or change the waveform of such aircraft in order to make them invisible to adversaries’ radar systems.
He said he also wants the aerial refueling planes to have laser platforms that will work to target ground-to-air missiles and that he intends to move eight Lockheed Martin-built C-5M transport aircraft to flying status through additional funds from the Trump administration’s proposed defense budget for fiscal 2018.
Everhart also noted that he will hold a conference with officials from commercial airlines, Air Force Reserve and National Guard on May 18 in Maryland to discuss ways on how to hire and train new airmen to address the pilot shortage, the report added.
