A final strut for ‘Big Sexy’
September 20, 2024
The McDonnell Douglas KC-10A Extender (known by many as ‘Big Sexy’) has flown its last training sortie. The type will now fly again only to ferry aircraft to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group the ‘Desert Boneyard’ at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, initially for open-air storage and then, most likely, scrapping.
A KC-10 ‘Final Farewell’ will be held at Travis AFB, with ‘final walk through tours’ on Wednesday 25 September, and a ceremony on Thursday 26 September. The KC-10 is being retired as the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus enters service in greater numbers, and will be ‘outlived’ by the older, smaller and less-capable KC-135. Some believe that with the demands of the Indo Pacific theatre, the USAF may be retiring the wrong tanker, but cutting the entire KC-10 fleet leverages greater savings than would cutting part of the KC-135 fleet.
The KC-10 fleet has been progressively reduced over the last few years. One of the
60th Air Mobility Wing’s Extenders (serial number 84-0191) was delivered to the Air Force museum in April. This particular aircraft had played a pivotal role during Operation El Dorado Canyon in 1986, serving as the primary refuelling aircraft for the F-111s targeting Libyan targets in Tripoli.
The last KC-10 left the 305th Air Mobility Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey on the US East Coast in June 2023, leaving Travis as the only Extender base.
Travis received the first of the new replacements for its Extenders in July 2023, with the arrival of the first KC-46A Pegasus for the 60th Air Mobility Wing. This marked the start of the Wing’s transition from the KC-10 to the KC-46.
Another milestone occurred on 5 October 2023, when the KC-10A flew its final combat sortie during its last deployment assignment to Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia.
Maintenance teams at Travis Air Force Base, concluded the last A-check for the KC-10 on 28 June. An A-check is a routine week-long biannual inspection assessing wear and tear, and the condition of the engines, landing gear, flight controls, avionics, and other critical components.
The final KC-10 training sortie was flown on 18 September, without much fanfare. The last aircraft to refuel from a KC-10 was a 60th Air Mobility Wing KC-46 (which then refuelled the KC-10).
