What is the oldest aircraft in service in the United States Air Force? When it comes to the US Navy, the answer to that question is easy. The oldest US ship in service is the wooden frigate, USS Constitution, aka Old Ironsides, which first launched in 1797. In the Air Force, the oldest jet aircraft in service is a KC-135 Stratotanker with the tail number 57-1719. That aircraft was built in 1957 and is still flying refueling missions. The B-52 Stratofortress seems to be the oldest type of aircraft in service as it first flew in 1952. The oldest military aircraft still in production is the C-130 Hercules family that first flew in 1954.
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- Guest authors
- January 8, 2025
- 0
February 29th, 2008. It was the day that Northrop Grumman Corporation announced that it had been selected by the U.S. Air Force to provide the KC-45A aerial refueling tanker for the KC-135 tanker replacement program. Most notably, this jet would be based on the A330 commercial airframe, produced by EADS – which, these days, would be Airbus’ Defence and Space division.Unfortunately, the celebrations wouldn’t last long for Airbus and Northrop Grumman.Just days later, Boeing would launch a full-scale counteroffensive to convince the Air Force that it had selected the wrong aircraft. In the end, Boeing was successful in overturning the Northrop Grumman deal, having its 767-based tanker win instead. It’s been quite awhile since this whole ordeal took place – long before our website and YouTube channels existed. So we thought it would be interesting to take a look back for today’s video!
Boeing MQ-25 Uncrewed Carrier-Based Refueler: US Navy JPALS Test Successful
- Guest authors
- September 21, 2024
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