The KC cometh

Raaf Highlights Risks As Kc-30 Mods Begin

One of Australia’s largest aircraft conversion programs is getting under way after the first EADS KC-30 tanker for the RAAF to be modified in Australia was inducted into Qantas Engineering’s specially modified hangar in a ceremony at Brisbane Airport on June 6.

Four of the five KC-30s on order for the RAAF will be modified by to tankers Qantas Engineering at Brisbane over the next few years after the first aircraft was converted by EADS’s Military Transport Aircraft Division (still colloquially known as EADS CASA) outside Madrid in Spain. All five aircraft are due to be handed over to the RAAF by the end of 2010, but RAAF officials acknowledge that, despite the first prototype having been successfully test flown from November 2007 through to February this year, there still remains some technical risk that could see delivery of the capability delayed.