I think it would be in the best interest of the US Air Force to start getting rid of the KC-135 as soon and as fast as possible. With the Air Force already having around 90 KC-10, supplementing that with another 30 to 40 MD11F (KC-10R?) with both boom and Hose & Drogue systems. You then can Remove a equal number of KC-135s. No building of aircraft is necessary, you just need to buy them from the open market and modify them. You assign them to Air Force Reserve and Air Guard unit to take advantage of pilots you fly this aircraft in their civilian jobs. I believe you save on long term maintenance cost and flight restrictions. We can also assigned 1 squadron to each the Pacific Air Force and USAFE.
This also protects the Air Force from anymore further delays in the KC-X program. If the Air Force does not want to keep that many aircraft over the long run, then you can sell the excess to other countries. Examples would be Spain, Brazil, Poland, Chile and PPortugal.
When the KC-X is in full swing we must start removing the KC- 135 from the active inventory aggressively.
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