JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. -- JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. — The 32nd Air Refueling Squadron aircrew performed several training maneuvers in the KC-46A Pegasus, Aircraft, June 29, 2026, to maintain their mission readiness.
Routine training allows KC-46 aircrews to stay familiar with their occupational specialties such as aerial refueling and practice uncommon procedures such as specialized fueling operations.
“In a potential future scenario, SFO allows the KC-46 to be significantly even more self-sufficient as a crew,” U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Brandon Rivas, 32nd ARS boom operator said. “It allows us to not require maintainers to fuel the aircraft, and it keeps us in the fight for longer.”
To perform SFO, the KC-46 pilots land the aircraft on a suitable runway and keep one jet engine running. An aircrew member will move outside of the jet and begin receiving fuel from a fuel truck. Once the jet is refueled, it can move back into theater with minimal disruption to the mission.
SFO extends the KC-46 operational range and allows for additional aircraft to receive aerial refueling. In addition to receiving fuel on the flight line, the KC-46 can receive fuel from another aerial refueling aircraft.
“There's a multitude of capabilities that you give the U.S. military as a whole, just by having [the KC-46] receiver capable,” Capt. Braden Hicks, 32nd ARS pilot, said. “As far as training others, [aerial refueling] is not too dissimilar to teaching anything else. It takes time and repetition.”
Through routine training, instructor pilots can help guide newer pilots unfamiliar with the KC-46. Hicks noted that patience is the most important part about being a pilot, especially during aerial refueling.
“[The KC-46] has so much inertia,” Hicks said. “It takes a lot of thrust to move in one direction or the other and it's not quick to react.”
Day-to-day mission sets and experimental techniques are part of the relentless innovation the 305th executes to stay mission ready tonight.