The USAF thinks small drones launched from KC-135s will give the tankers another layer of defense and extra situational awareness, among other capabilities.

The U.S. Air Force has developed a means to launch small drones from its KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, and is now looking at adding that capability to the fleet. The service says the tankers could send out uncrewed aerial systems to help defend themselves from incoming threats and just provide useful additional situational awareness, as well as to potentially perform other missions in the future.

Work on the prototype KC-135 Drone Delivery Mechanism (DDM) was completed sometime in Fiscal Year 2024, which ended on Sept. 30 of last year. However, the milestone only appears to have been disclosed in the Air Force’s proposed budget for the 2026 Fiscal Year, the release of which started last week. This is something that has been in the works since at least 2023.

The DDM line item in the budget request describes the system as being intended to provide “onboard defensive/ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] capability for operations in [a] contested environment.”

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