Air Force looking at using tankers as data fusion tool

The head of the Air Force's Air Mobility Command said this week the service is studying the possibility of using aerial refuelers as a data fusion tool.

Gen. Carlton Everhart told an audience March 2 at the Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium he has a team that is considering the feasibility of using a KC-46 tanker as a "relay platform" that could offload data while refueling a fighter jet, send that data to a ground-based processing center, and then send that fuzed data back to the F-35 pilot.

"That's part of fusion," Everhart said. "That's part of this integration."