8 ms·

Boeing MQ-25 Stingray

41 points by PopeDotNinja 7y ago

SEJeff 7y ago
There was a lot of contention with this at first, but the Navy decided their first carrier based UAV / UAS would be a tanker to simply extend the range of their existing fighter / bomber fleet instead of outright replacing it. This seems to be a very good move as it simply lengthens to the reach of the existing airpower.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  It's a move meant to appease Congress by not saving money on unmanned weapons systems. The Pentagon has killed UAV programs that performed too well.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    The robots are coming for our jobs!
- mikece 7y ago
  As someone else said it's a move to appease Congress -- but also the Air Bosses who lose several of their F-18s to tanker duty as well as the F-18 crews who HATE the tanker duty. I imagine the E-2D crews will be cautiously watching to see just how much ISR gear will be fitted to the MQ-25 in the name of "since it's on board, and since it's going to do a lot of loitering aloft while waiting to tank someone about to bingo, let's see how well it does in a limited ISR role..." After that it will be "What if we put a Wescam Ball and AESA array on an MQ-25?" At that point the E-2D program will be in jeopardy.
  - greedo 7y ago
    UAVs will have a hard time in a doing AEW since array size is very important. Also, the crew of the E2s do quite a bit of the work, stuff that can't be automated. And when operating under EMCON, the value of an E2 is even higher.
daveslash 7y ago
I believe this to be an absolute game changer (is used as I think it can be). Currently we have several forward air bases and stations in the Middle East. I think some of that may be so that we can have aerial tankers there (KC-135s, KC-10s). Because we want to refuel things in mid-air, we need need tankers over there. Because we need tankers over there, we need air bases. Because we need air bases in certain countries, we must maintain reasonable diplomatic relations with said countries -- even when our humanitarian or other policies are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I think that by having carrier based tankers we could de-couple from some of these countries with some of these bases. I think can can, potentially, lead to a very different strategic approach.
- chrchr 7y ago
  The F/A-18 Super Hornet already fulfills the carrier-based refueling role with an external Aerial Refueling System. https://web.archive.org/web/20111104063941/http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/1999/news_release_990414o.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20111104063941/http://www.boeing...
  - mrpippy 7y ago
    That's true, but a Super Hornet is an incredibly expensive platform to use as an aerial tanker. Quote from https://www.historyonthenet.com/carrier-based-aerial-refueling-system-cbars https://www.historyonthenet.com/carrier-based-aerial-refueli...: The Super Hornet has filled in the tactical tanker role the Navy lost with the retirement of these older tankers. The problem with using the Super Hornet as a tanker is that on typical missions a fifth of the air wing is dedicated to the tanker role, which consumes aircraft fatigue life expectancy much more quickly than other missions. In 2016 a fleet-experienced naval flight officer said, “The Navy has painted itself into a corner with Super Hornet tankers. The mission eats up fatigue life at a ridiculous rate, and there is something really, really stupid about using your most capable strike platform as a tanker.” Because “classic” Hornets, through the FA-18D, did not carry a “buddy store” refueling pack, later-model Hornets are required. But the tanker mission badly eroded the Super Hornet’s six thousand-hour airframe life, further reducing availability, since FA-18Es typically spend 25 percent of their time tanking.
ashika 7y ago
seems useful for the types of support we recently provided the saudis in yemen. this tech would lower the marginal cost of providing that type of support significantly. doubt taxpayers will claw any of that back, though :|
ncmncm 7y ago
I can't tell if this is a drone that knows how to be refueled in the air, or if it is a drone that actually provides refueling to other aircraft. Clue? It doesn't seem big enough to hold much fuel.
- whalesalad 7y ago
  This performs refueling for another aircraft in need of fuel.
mikece 7y ago
I don't know if the Boeing's MQ-25 gets to use any of the guidance/navigation systems of Northrup's X-47B but I recall they had to program in some randomness to the plane's landing program because the X-47B was hitting the exact same spot on the deck on every single landing (which was causing concerns about deck maintenance and durability), unlike human pilots which sometimes miss all four wires. Makes me wonder if the form-factor of a carrier can be shrunk since drones can reliably hit much smaller landing spots reliably. Why invest in the massive size and expense of a super carrier when something much smaller can launch and recover fixed wing UAVs to handle ISR? After all, the revolution of aircraft carriers in WW2 was over-the-horizon visual location and attack of enemy shipping; we can do the latter quite easily with guided missiles and UAVs do the former quite nicely.
- RankingMember 7y ago
  I feel like the age of carriers may be over entirely. They're basically sitting ducks for advanced weaponry and cost a ton of money in manpower and cash to operate. Their role can be supplanted by modern long-range missiles. The only reason to keep them operating in my opinion is for what I call "bravado missions" where we float around contested areas just to show we can.
  - rumanator 7y ago
    Carriers are important because they provide the ability to launch and resupply aircraft, which is critical to seize and maintain control of the enemy's airspace. Long-range missiles do nothing to control airspace. They let you hit enemies far away but do nothing to stop enemies from hitting your guys or cut your supply lines.
    - RankingMember 7y ago
      I understand what you're saying, but in an actual conflict with a modern nation I'd argue that the role you describe would be hard to fulfill when the carrier is targeted by any number of modern armaments and is quickly relocated to the ocean floor.
some_random 7y ago
Is it just me or is $804 mil for a capability like this incredibly cheap?
- pageandrew 7y ago
  yeah, I noticed that too. the entire program cost about the same as a single B2 Spirit aircraft.
  - athriren 7y ago
    The industry is pretty certain Boeing is taking a loss on this contract in order to secure additional future contracts for the platform.
exabrial 7y ago
Talk about scope creep on a project, wow
RankingMember 7y ago
How long before there's some kind of drop-in "drone pilot" array to retrofit existing aircraft (e.g. the Super Hornet) such that they operate unmanned? Not only would the handling not be restricted by human anatomy, but the large time/financial investment in pilot training wouldn't be at risk of being lost should an incident occur.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > How long before there's some kind of drop-in "drone pilot" array to retrofit existing aircraft (e.g. the Super Hornet) such that they operate unmanned? They do that already to make target drones out of old aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon_variants#QF-16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...
loginx 7y ago
The planning and project management aspect sounds like it's straight out of a post apocalyptic bureaucratic nightmare. It was intended to be a strike drone, but wait, let's flip the project halfway through into an intelligence drone. You know what? f*ck it, let's flip it into a refuelling drone. The project history is a sinuous cautionary tale of scope creep and descoping.
- ArPDent 7y ago
  reminds me of the Bradley IFV and this sequence from the Pentagon Wars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA
- zyang 7y ago
  Positioning it as a tanker is a smart move. Taking on the least glamorous job helps keeping the scope down, lower expectations, provide value from day 1. It's what they should have aimed for in the first place.
- sailfast 7y ago
  While you might be right, is it not also possible that they delivered some key capabilities that were unique (autonomous carrier landing!?) to reach the strike objective, realized it wouldn't meet all of them so pivoted to ISR (of which I recall there being a shortage of assets so maybe more demand with other strike programs going on in 2012?) then looked to the tanker mission after realizing there were other things that it maybe couldn't do as well as other platforms for the ISR purpose? In startup language you might say the team "pivoted"? I'm not saying that's what happened here as bureaucracy often causes these nightmares, but it's possible there were a lot of good intentions / approaches at play as well.
einpoklum 7y ago
A tool of imperial violence - extending the US military's abilities to conduct offenses thousands of miles from its own sovereign territory. Shame on those who made it.
- AlexMuir 7y ago
  The entirety of human history is one of conflict. Do you believe this is now at an end? Do you believe there are any prospective military threats to the US in the next 30 years? And if so, from where?
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    > The entirety of human history is one of conflict. Oh, that's even better than that other quote of yours: "If two irreconcilable elements are struggling with each other, the solution lies in force. There has never been any other solution in history, and there never will be." Eh, Mr. Mussolini ?
- branchan 7y ago
  It’s likely that your work and life has greatly benefited from technologies that originated from the military.
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    That's true, but: 1. My life (and more so, the life of many around me) has greatly suffered from the operation of military bodies. 2. Those technologies could have, instead, been developed in civilian spaces, had the world, especially the great powers, not been so militarized. We might have had some difference in emphasis in what technologies get developed faster of course.
    - branchan 7y ago
      Do you use the internet? GPS? Where do you think those technologies come from?
sailfast 7y ago
Random, but I wonder why they went with the MQ designation instead of KQ for this.

41 points by PopeDotNinja 7y ago

There was a lot of contention with this at first, but the Navy decided their first carrier based UAV / UAS would be a tanker to simply extend the range of their existing fighter / bomber fleet instead of outright replacing it. This seems to be a very good move as it simply lengthens to the reach of the existing airpower.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
It's a move meant to appease Congress by not saving money on unmanned weapons systems. The Pentagon has killed UAV programs that performed too well.
- jandrese 7y ago
  The robots are coming for our jobs!
mikece 7y ago
As someone else said it's a move to appease Congress -- but also the Air Bosses who lose several of their F-18s to tanker duty as well as the F-18 crews who HATE the tanker duty. I imagine the E-2D crews will be cautiously watching to see just how much ISR gear will be fitted to the MQ-25 in the name of "since it's on board, and since it's going to do a lot of loitering aloft while waiting to tank someone about to bingo, let's see how well it does in a limited ISR role..." After that it will be "What if we put a Wescam Ball and AESA array on an MQ-25?" At that point the E-2D program will be in jeopardy.
- greedo 7y ago
  UAVs will have a hard time in a doing AEW since array size is very important. Also, the crew of the E2s do quite a bit of the work, stuff that can't be automated. And when operating under EMCON, the value of an E2 is even higher.

daveslash 7y ago

I believe this to be an absolute game changer (is used as I think it can be). Currently we have several forward air bases and stations in the Middle East. I think some of that may be so that we can have aerial tankers there (KC-135s, KC-10s). Because we want to refuel things in mid-air, we need need tankers over there. Because we need tankers over there, we need air bases. Because we need air bases in certain countries, we must maintain reasonable diplomatic relations with said countries -- even when our humanitarian or other policies are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I think that by having carrier based tankers we could de-couple from some of these countries with some of these bases. I think can can, potentially, lead to a very different strategic approach.

chrchr 7y ago
The F/A-18 Super Hornet already fulfills the carrier-based refueling role with an external Aerial Refueling System. https://web.archive.org/web/20111104063941/http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/1999/news_release_990414o.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20111104063941/http://www.boeing...
- mrpippy 7y ago
  That's true, but a Super Hornet is an incredibly expensive platform to use as an aerial tanker. Quote from https://www.historyonthenet.com/carrier-based-aerial-refueling-system-cbars https://www.historyonthenet.com/carrier-based-aerial-refueli...: The Super Hornet has filled in the tactical tanker role the Navy lost with the retirement of these older tankers. The problem with using the Super Hornet as a tanker is that on typical missions a fifth of the air wing is dedicated to the tanker role, which consumes aircraft fatigue life expectancy much more quickly than other missions. In 2016 a fleet-experienced naval flight officer said, “The Navy has painted itself into a corner with Super Hornet tankers. The mission eats up fatigue life at a ridiculous rate, and there is something really, really stupid about using your most capable strike platform as a tanker.” Because “classic” Hornets, through the FA-18D, did not carry a “buddy store” refueling pack, later-model Hornets are required. But the tanker mission badly eroded the Super Hornet’s six thousand-hour airframe life, further reducing availability, since FA-18Es typically spend 25 percent of their time tanking.

ashika 7y ago

seems useful for the types of support we recently provided the saudis in yemen. this tech would lower the marginal cost of providing that type of support significantly. doubt taxpayers will claw any of that back, though :|

ncmncm 7y ago

I can't tell if this is a drone that knows how to be refueled in the air, or if it is a drone that actually provides refueling to other aircraft. Clue? It doesn't seem big enough to hold much fuel.

whalesalad 7y ago
This performs refueling for another aircraft in need of fuel.

mikece 7y ago

I don't know if the Boeing's MQ-25 gets to use any of the guidance/navigation systems of Northrup's X-47B but I recall they had to program in some randomness to the plane's landing program because the X-47B was hitting the exact same spot on the deck on every single landing (which was causing concerns about deck maintenance and durability), unlike human pilots which sometimes miss all four wires. Makes me wonder if the form-factor of a carrier can be shrunk since drones can reliably hit much smaller landing spots reliably. Why invest in the massive size and expense of a super carrier when something much smaller can launch and recover fixed wing UAVs to handle ISR? After all, the revolution of aircraft carriers in WW2 was over-the-horizon visual location and attack of enemy shipping; we can do the latter quite easily with guided missiles and UAVs do the former quite nicely.

RankingMember 7y ago
I feel like the age of carriers may be over entirely. They're basically sitting ducks for advanced weaponry and cost a ton of money in manpower and cash to operate. Their role can be supplanted by modern long-range missiles. The only reason to keep them operating in my opinion is for what I call "bravado missions" where we float around contested areas just to show we can.
- rumanator 7y ago
  Carriers are important because they provide the ability to launch and resupply aircraft, which is critical to seize and maintain control of the enemy's airspace. Long-range missiles do nothing to control airspace. They let you hit enemies far away but do nothing to stop enemies from hitting your guys or cut your supply lines.
  - RankingMember 7y ago
    I understand what you're saying, but in an actual conflict with a modern nation I'd argue that the role you describe would be hard to fulfill when the carrier is targeted by any number of modern armaments and is quickly relocated to the ocean floor.

some_random 7y ago

Is it just me or is $804 mil for a capability like this incredibly cheap?

pageandrew 7y ago
yeah, I noticed that too. the entire program cost about the same as a single B2 Spirit aircraft.
- athriren 7y ago
  The industry is pretty certain Boeing is taking a loss on this contract in order to secure additional future contracts for the platform.

exabrial 7y ago

Talk about scope creep on a project, wow

RankingMember 7y ago

How long before there's some kind of drop-in "drone pilot" array to retrofit existing aircraft (e.g. the Super Hornet) such that they operate unmanned? Not only would the handling not be restricted by human anatomy, but the large time/financial investment in pilot training wouldn't be at risk of being lost should an incident occur.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> How long before there's some kind of drop-in "drone pilot" array to retrofit existing aircraft (e.g. the Super Hornet) such that they operate unmanned? They do that already to make target drones out of old aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon_variants#QF-16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...

loginx 7y ago

The planning and project management aspect sounds like it's straight out of a post apocalyptic bureaucratic nightmare. It was intended to be a strike drone, but wait, let's flip the project halfway through into an intelligence drone. You know what? f*ck it, let's flip it into a refuelling drone. The project history is a sinuous cautionary tale of scope creep and descoping.

ArPDent 7y ago
reminds me of the Bradley IFV and this sequence from the Pentagon Wars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA
zyang 7y ago
Positioning it as a tanker is a smart move. Taking on the least glamorous job helps keeping the scope down, lower expectations, provide value from day 1. It's what they should have aimed for in the first place.
sailfast 7y ago
While you might be right, is it not also possible that they delivered some key capabilities that were unique (autonomous carrier landing!?) to reach the strike objective, realized it wouldn't meet all of them so pivoted to ISR (of which I recall there being a shortage of assets so maybe more demand with other strike programs going on in 2012?) then looked to the tanker mission after realizing there were other things that it maybe couldn't do as well as other platforms for the ISR purpose? In startup language you might say the team "pivoted"? I'm not saying that's what happened here as bureaucracy often causes these nightmares, but it's possible there were a lot of good intentions / approaches at play as well.

einpoklum 7y ago

A tool of imperial violence - extending the US military's abilities to conduct offenses thousands of miles from its own sovereign territory. Shame on those who made it.

AlexMuir 7y ago
The entirety of human history is one of conflict. Do you believe this is now at an end? Do you believe there are any prospective military threats to the US in the next 30 years? And if so, from where?
- einpoklum 7y ago
  > The entirety of human history is one of conflict. Oh, that's even better than that other quote of yours: "If two irreconcilable elements are struggling with each other, the solution lies in force. There has never been any other solution in history, and there never will be." Eh, Mr. Mussolini ?
branchan 7y ago
It’s likely that your work and life has greatly benefited from technologies that originated from the military.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  That's true, but: 1. My life (and more so, the life of many around me) has greatly suffered from the operation of military bodies. 2. Those technologies could have, instead, been developed in civilian spaces, had the world, especially the great powers, not been so militarized. We might have had some difference in emphasis in what technologies get developed faster of course.
  - branchan 7y ago
    Do you use the internet? GPS? Where do you think those technologies come from?

sailfast 7y ago

Random, but I wonder why they went with the MQ designation instead of KQ for this.