Middle Eastern Air Forces Understand The Importance Of Tanker Aircraft

To preserve the long-range strategic strike capabilities of its powerful air force, Israel is upgrading its aged aerial tanker fleet with an order for two additional KC-46A Pegasus tankers from the United States. Possession of such tanker aircraft has given regional air forces, especially Israel’s, a decisive edge in previous conflicts and will no doubt continue to do so.

Israel will acquire the two Boeing-made tankers as part of a $500 million deal, its defense ministry announced Wednesday. The order comes atop the four KC-46s Israel already ordered to replace its modified Boeing KC-707 “Ram” tankers. Israel expects its first KC-46, which it will dub “Gideon,” in the next six months and the other five by 2030. Despite their advanced age and previous plans to retire them a decade ago, Israel may keep its KC-707 fleet, estimated to number seven aircraft altogether, in service for another few years.

The acquisition comes shortly after Israel’s unprecedented 12-day war against Iran, which saw its air force dominate Iranian airspace. Israel apparently achieved this air superiority solely with the support of its KC-707s. After all, the U.S. Air Force officially maintains that it did not refuel any of the hundreds of Israeli fighters, which continuously flew back and forth from Iran, at least 930 miles each way, throughout those 12 days.

Israeli news outlet Ynet noted that, once completed, the KC-46 acquisition will more than double Israel’s existing capability to conduct operations in what it calls the third circle, hence distant adversaries like Iran and its ally the Houthis in Yemen.

“With six KC-46 tankers alongside the Ram fleet, the air force believes it will be able to maintain almost continuous air presence over Iran, effectively ‘living in Iranian skies’ and imposing aerial pressure on Tehran,” Ynet noted. “This would give Israel unprecedented control at low altitude over a regional power located some 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away and vastly larger than Israel.”

Since the war, officials have suggested Israel would sustain what would amount to an air occupation of Iran. Even attempting such a logistically challenging, and presumably long-term, campaign would doubtlessly require constant and continuous tanker support.

Israel isn’t the only regional power that understands the importance of having a tanker fleet for supporting air force operations, either in the vicinity or far away from its borders.

In light of the 12-day war, it may seem ironic that it was Iran that once had a leading tanker fleet in the region.

In the 1970s, when Iran was an ally of the United States under the regime of the last Shah, it acquired KC-707 and KC-747 tankers. It needed such aircraft for supporting the enormous American-equipped air force it had rapidly built up, which included fourth-generation F-14A Tomcats supplemented by large numbers of F-4 and F-5 fighters.

When Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded post-revolutionary Iran in 1980, these tankers played a key role in keeping large numbers of Iranian fighters, which struck deep inside Iraq on the first days of the war, in the air and thus in the fight. On April 4, 1981, in a truly daring airstrike, an Iranian KC-707 and KC-747 flew with Iranian fighter jets deep into Iraqi airspace during the landmark surprise strike against the strategic H-3 airfield in Iraq’s western Anbar province. The Iranian strike package achieved this groundbreaking attack by flying over northern Iraq and briefly through Turkish airspace to hit the unsuspecting Iraqis at H-3, who believed that the base’s distance from the frontlines made it relatively safe.

(Incidentally, early in the June 2025 war, Israel destroyed at least one Iranian tanker, possibly the last operational KC-747 in the world, parked in the international airport of the northeastern city of Mashhad.)

Israel launched its own groundbreaking airstrike against Iraq that same year, the June 7, 1981, attack on Iraq’s French-built Osirak nuclear reactor in Baghdad. In that operation, codenamed Opera, the strike package of Israel’s new F-15s and F-16s did not have tanker support.

After its KC-707s entered service two years later, it did not take long for Israel to demonstrate the extended reach these bulky aircraft gave its premier fighter jets. By October 1985, Israeli KC-707s refueled F-15s, enabling them to fly all the way from their home airbases over the Eastern Mediterranean to strike the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Tunisia. For decades, that strike, codenamed Operation Wooden Leg, would remain the longest-range strike ever executed by IAF fighters, thanks in large part to that in-flight refueling capability.

Other regional powers doubtlessly understood the importance of such capabilities and sought to furnish their own air forces with tanker aircraft. For example, Saudi Arabia gradually amassed a fleet of tankers larger than Israel’s present one, acquiring KC-707 and KC-130s from the United States and Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transports from Spain. Riyadh ordered four more of the latter aircraft in 2024.

Despite such acquisitions, the Royal Saudi Air Force still relied heavily on support from the United States throughout its seven-year air campaign against the Houthis over its southern border in Yemen from 2015 to 2022. In 2018, the Pentagon billed Saudi Arabia and its fellow coalition member, the United Arab Emirates, a $331 million bill for that assistance.

The UAE operates a smaller fleet of Airbus A330 MRTTs and has often found itself reliant on the support of U.S. Air Force tankers. In January 2022, following an unprecedented Houthi missile and drone attack on Abu Dhabi, USAF tankers supported round-the-clock air patrols by Emirati F-16s and Mirage 2000s on the lookout for any follow-up drone attacks. Washington then inadvertently offended the shaken Emirati leadership by promptly handing them a bill for that support in their time of need.

The only regional country in NATO, Turkey, has also acquired tanker aircraft to support its large American-equipped air force, which has the third largest F-16 fleet worldwide. Turkish Air Force operations over the years have invariably targeted enemy targets, mainly Kurdish, in northern Syria and the mountain strongholds of the Kurdish PKK group in Iraqi Kurdistan. Aside from supporting these operations, Turkish tankers enable F-16s to fly far from Turkish shores to project force in places like the Eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey presently has seven KC-135R Stratotanker aircraft based in the southeastern Incirlik airbase. Some of these tankers even refueled Turkish F-16s participating in the dramatic July 15, 2016, coup attempt. Ankara later sent them back to the United States for a “Block 45” upgrade, which remodeled their flight decks and upgraded many systems in 2021.

At present, Turkey is reportedly deciding between the KC-46A and the A330 MRTT to replace the KC-135Rs eventually.

While Israel used its KC-707s to symbolically project strength by refueling fighter jets flying far out over the Eastern Mediterranean—often simulating the distance between Israel and Iran—these tankers would again enable Israeli fighters to strike distant targets in 2024. Just under 29 years after Operation Wooden Leg, Israeli fighters flew approximately 1,200 miles to strike militant targets, this time the Houthis in Yemen. Israel has intermittently launched such long-range airstrikes since July 2024, after a Houthi drone hit Tel Aviv, in combat missions that, especially in retrospect, served as dry runs for the June air war against Iran.

Almost immediately after the June campaign started, Middle East Eye reported that Israel had modified its premier fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II stealth strike fighters to carry extra fuel, reducing the need for tankers. It’s undoubtedly possible that Israel developed conformal tankers for the F-35, which would not reduce their stealth to the extent that drop tanks would, as previously speculated it would in this space four years ago.

Either way, fourth-generation F-15s and F-16s participated in strikes deep inside Iran and most likely required at least some tanker support to do so. And even if Israel’s F-35I Adir variants do now have conformal fuel tanks, Israel will likely still need tankers for future operations at comparable distances.

Therefore, the gradual addition of KC-46s in the coming months, along with over 25 more F-35Is, could make future over-the-horizon air campaigns like this even more intense and deadly.