How Many Miles Per Gallon Does A KC-46 Pegasus Get?

A BoeingKC-46 Pegasus can burn through more than four gallons of jet fuel for every mile it flies, at least if the aircraft is judged by the same crude miles-per-gallon calculation used for a car. That sounds less like the efficiency of a modern military aircraft and more like a problem waiting to be solved. But rather than treating the Pegasus’s enormous fuel appetite as the central problem, the United States Air Force is expanding the fleet around it. The contradiction raises a more interesting question than the headline number itself: what exactly is the Air Force getting for all that fuel?