The planned NGARS system would allow American aircraft to refuel in contested airspace—giving the US Air Force a major edge over its great-power rivals.

The Next Generation Air Refueling System (NGARS) is a US Air Force program designed to field a new stealth tanker platform. The result of a shifting landscape of air power in the 21st century—in which low observability has become paramount to survival—the NGARS should, in theory, offer an incremental advance in refueling capability and the ability to refuel while staying invisible to enemy radars. 

The impetus for the NGARS program, as well as all other stealth aircraft initiatives in the US military, is the ever-increasing sophistication of Chinese and Russian air defense systems, now capable of long-range precision firing. Legacy tankers like the KC-135 Stratotanker and KC-10 Extender are no longer appropriate for combat situations with near-peer adversaries. While these legacy tankers have served the US military well, enabling global reach, the lumbering, obvious aircraft are not effective in contested environments, where they can be easily detected and shot down. Enter the NGARS. 

How the NGARS Is Different from Existing Refuelers

The NGARS is designed to operate where legacy predecessors could not: within contested airspace, where enemy radars are actively searching for the tankers. Accordingly, the new airframe is expected to incorporate low-observable shaping borrowed from fifth-generation fighters, such as the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, and the forthcoming stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider. Featured blended surfaces, canted tail structures, and buried inlets to reduce radar cross-section (RCS), the NGARS will incorporate the lessons learned over the last generation or so of stealth aircraft design. Further reducing the NGARS signature are radar-absorbent materials (RAM) and a design emphasis on infrared (IR) signature reduction. The sum of these features should allow the NGARS to shadow stealth strike aircraft, in air spaces that require stealth, rather than loiter hundreds away from the action where survivability is more likely. 

Of course, the NGARS design cannot rely solely on stealth. The airframe must serve as a functional tanker—with high-endurance and high-capacity refueling. Accordingly, engineers are balancing payload with stealth features and internal fuel storage, offering a platform with efficiency and survivability. Combining so many seemingly incompatible performance aspects would not have been possible in years past, but with advances in materials science yielding lightweight composite materials and next-generation engines, the NGARS design is suddenly feasible. 

The US Air Force Can Carry Out New Missions with the NGARS

The NGARS should also allow the US Air Force to reshape tactics. Rather than the outdated, rigid refueling tracks required for survival, the NGARS is expected to follow strike packages deeper into hostile air space, thereby reducing the distance stealth fighters and bombers must fly before topping off. Such a capability is especially valuable in a battle space that is vast and spread out, say, somewhere like the Indo-Pacific, where operations dependent upon legacy tankers would be range-limited in a theater where high-range is essential. 

And like all modern aircraft, the NGARS will integrate advanced communications and networking, in effect serving as a data node that links with all other assets in the area. In essence, the NGARS will not just be a tanker, but an information hub, offering a second major purpose. 

Of course, all of these benefits remain theoretical. Building stealth tankers has never been done before. The costs and complexity of the project are immense. Critics have suggested that refueling can be accomplished sufficiently, and affordably, with long-range tankers and unmanned drones. But Air Force planners, often advocating for the most advanced tech, are keen on a tanker that can escort strike packages deep into enemy territory—and will remain relevant for decades to come.