For those with dreams of owning their own fleet of aerial refuellers, the opportunity of a lifetime is about to close.
The Pentagon is selling 10 of its retired Boeing KC-10 Extender tankers via auction, with bidding set to close on 6 May.
Each of the trijets is listed for sale by the US General Services Administration (GSA) with a minimum bid price of $500,000. As of 5 May, only one of the aircraft had received more than a single bid.
However, anyone keen on launching a private tanking service will have to make significant investment beyond just the sale price. Each of the KC-10s is listed with only two of the aircraft’s three GE Aerospace CF6 engines and critically without the refuelling boom included.
“This aircraft is in a non-flyable condition, and it is not in compliance with applicable FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] requirements,” the GSA auction description for each jet notes.
Fleets data from aviation analytics firm Cirium indicates the aircraft tail numbers listed in the auction range in age from 37 to 44 years old.
The US Air Force (USAF) retired its last KC-10 in September 2024, as the service phased out the Cold War-era Extenders in favour of Boeing’s 767-based KC-46 Pegasus tanker design.
After entering service in 1981, the air force began retiring KC-10s in 2020, paring down the fleet to provide a source of spare parts for aircraft that remained in service. Mothballed jets were transported to the famous aircraft “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona for long-term storage.
The GSA auction lists Davis-Monthan as the location for all of the 10 Extenders up for sale.
While making the decommissioned KC-10s airworthy would require significant private investment, at least one prominent figure is calling for exactly that.
“For too long, we have treated our aerial refuelling enterprise like an afterthought — slowly retiring the KC-10, stretching the KC-135 beyond its limits, and waiting for the KC-46 to grow into its full capability after years of industrial fumbles,” says retired USAF General Mike Minihan.
As the former head of Air Mobility Command, Minihan oversaw the USAF’s fleet of tankers and cargo transports. While in uniform, the four-star general was an early and vocal advocate for expanding the USA’s aerial tanking capability.
Minihan pushed the air force to get the KC-46 into operational service, despite numerous engineering and production setbacks that plagued the Boeing programme. The 767-derivative received certification for full frontline service in 2022, under Minihan’s oversight.
Now a senior principle with strategic consultancy Pallas Advisors, Minihan is advocating for the 10 Extenders listed for auction to be transferred to a US-based company offering contracted aerial refuelling services, calling the sale a “once-in-a-generation chance to expand and reinforce America’s commercial refuelling capacity”.
“The current auction process does not prioritise keeping these tankers in America or keeping them as tankers at all,” Minihan says. “Foreign entities and scrap companies can bid.”
The former Lockheed Martin C-130 pilot argues the KC-10s should be transferred to private operators, in return for those firms providing dedicated aerial refuelling services to the Pentagon.
This would increase Washington’s tanker capacity “at no additional procurement cost”, Minihan argues.
As the air mobility commander, Minihan approved the USAF’s first-ever use of contracted air refuelling in 2023. That inaugural mission saw US aviation services provider Metrea top off a Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint and Boeing E-3 Sentry during regular exercises over Nevada known as Resolute Hunter.
The US Navy and US Marine Corps made use of commercial aerial refuelling services for several years before the air force adopted the practice.
Metrea offers a sprawling portfolio of services, including airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, tactical helicopter training, special mobility transportation and MRO services.
The US Naval Air Systems Command has an active contract with Metrea for services in support of the Pentagon and its overseas partners. The company’s strategic mobility division based in Temecula, California provides air-to-air refuelling services with a fleet of Boeing KC-135R tankers.
That fleet began with four Stratotankers purchased from Singapore in 2020.
Metrea followed up that acquisition by purchasing the French air force’s entire fleet of Boeing tanker aircraft in 2024. The deal saw 14 of France’s KC-135 tankers transferred to Metrea, including both the C-135FR and C-135RG variants. The company declined to reveal the purchase price.
Metrea did not respond to a request for comment regarding the KC-10 auction and whether it plans to participate. The company’s preference for a single-type fleet perhaps makes it an unlikely candidate.
However, one of the company’s competitors has a known preference for the KC-10.
Virginia-based Omega Air Refueling Services operates a mixed fleet of KDC-10s and KC-707s, with Cirium listing two examples of each type in service with the company. Omega’s inventory also includes one KDC-10 and a single KC-707 in storage, Cirium suggests.
Omega acquired two KDC-10s from the Royal Netherlands Air Force in 2019. The company obtained its first DC-10 example from Japan Airlines in 2006, converting the commercial airliner to a tanker and receiving airworthiness certification from the USN in 2008.
One of Omega’s KDC-10s recently completed a refuelling flight with a USAF Boeing C-17 transport on 10 April, the first such instance involving those aircraft types, according to the air force.
In 2024, an Omega KDC-10B topped off one of the USAF’s Boeing B-52 strategic bombers, another first.
Notably, the KDC-10B involved in the C-17 encounter features an electro-optical sensor to control the fuel transfer boom, similar to the Remote Vision System installed in the KC-46 that has generated so many challenges for Boeing.
Omega’s three KDC-10s are all older than 46 years, according to Cirium data, making the US government’s Extender offering a potentially appealing proposition, at least for spare parts.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The KC-10 auction ends at 10:10 US Central time on 6 May.
