MQ-25 Stingray

[arian]

My understanding was that more sorties could be generated with the smaller airwing, as less time was wasted moving planes around the deck, to clear a space.

That's not what the USN found out from its studies on the question of what size carrier to produce. We had this discussion a while back based on the publicly available studies. The CBO found what you said to be the case, but the Navy disagreed. Frankly, the CBO didn't do much of a study other than on costs and not much on actual sortie generation.

The bottleneck on sorties was not really space for moving planes around.

LO won't score any points. Lowest cost solution should prevail.

LO may not be necessary, but the requirement will drive an inherently LO design. Also the future evolution of this is clear: it will need to be a multi-role UCAV to justify its space on the carrier deck. Eventually. Especially since these imagined 1,000nm strike profiles will always be a rarity.

[Dragon029]

Well, so far all I can say is that Boeing has yet again managed to make an ugly airplane.

I like the looks of it so far, though we still have limited knowledge of its overall size and shape.

[KamenRiderBlade]

Please give me more than a frontal Orthographic shot.

The only thing I can tell is that it has V-tails + straight wings or mostly straight wings.

[madrat]

Maybe it's not a V-tail. After looking at it longer, it does resemble the Bird of Prey with canards...




The pelican wing wouldn't be that thick as it implies and with the canard out of alignment with the main gull wing, there shouldn't be major RCS problems.

[KamenRiderBlade]

From the Frontal Press Shot, it looks like a 120 degree separation on the V-tail.

But that's just from that 1 press shot.

[arian]

I don't think those are canards. They don't appear to be movable at all. Also too thick to be canards. If anything, the rear wings are the ones that appear to be all-movable.

I don't think they're v-tails either. Too horizontal to serve as stabilizers.

I'm going with a rhombus "box-wing" with the rear wings being movable.

Boeing gave us a sneak-peak of it last year too:


This picture convinces me its not a canard, and Boeing is being secretive about the wing design in both sneak-peaks for some reason.

Here is Boeing's design from the rear:
https://twitter.com/BoeingDefense/statu ... 0260204545

And this may be NG's entry from August of this year

[Dragon029]

I still think they're V tails - sure they're very horizontal, but I think they'll be able to get sufficient yaw authority for doing lazy circuits and carrier landings. Plus we don't know if it'll utilise anything like split flaps like the B-2, spoilers like the X-47B or something fancier like fluidic thrust vectoring to augment yaw control (if this thing has an engine failure on approach to a carrier, a reduction in yaw control will be the least of its worries).

[madrat]

The gull wing would be smooth in turbulence, but suck in stall condition. The canards would augment vortex control at low speed and improve low speed pitch stability as it nears stall speed. Very low parasitic drag with a gull wing as the vortex doesn't cling to the wing. Probably has excellent trailing vortex performance, too, keeping the aircraft mating up to its probe in clean airflow.

[madrat]

My take. The canard is wrong. The nose is wrong. It's just a general idea.

[popcorn]

Yup.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthomp ... 2d8d14621e

Boeing Views Navy's MQ-25 Carrier-Based Drone Contract As A Must Win

You wouldn't think a company that just told Wall Street it will deliver over 800 jetliners this year would assign top priority to winning a Navy program aimed at buying a mere 76 unmanned aircraft, but that's what Boeing has done. The world's biggest aerospace company has decided the carrier-based MQ-25 drone is the beginning of a revolution in naval aviation, and it is determined to be on board...

Once the Navy gets comfortable with drones on flight decks, there are plenty of missions besides tanking to which unmanned technology might be applied.

[rheonomic]

I guess they need something to keep St. Louis open.

They'll probably win one of MQ-25 or T-X for industrial base reasons. I've heard rumors the Boeing helped write the MQ-25 RFP, so they're probably in a strong position there.

[popcorn]

Stingray acquisition being pushed back.

https://news.usni.org/2018/02/12/navy-f ... more-31320

Navy FY 2019 Budget Request Pushes MQ-25A Stingray to Mid-2020s

THE PENTAGON – The Navy’s MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial tanker project, previously described as a rapid acquisition program for the department, is now not set to be integrated into the air wing until 2026, officials said on Monday.


The Navy is proposing spending $719 million on research and development for the MQ-25A and now anticipates purchasing the first four aircraft in 2023. The service doesn’t expect to reach initial operational capability until Fiscal Year 2026, Rear Adm. Brian Luther, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget and the director of fiscal management on the Chief of Naval Operations staff, said during a Fiscal Year 2019 budget briefing Monday...

The request for proposal for the MQ-25A was issued to industry in October. The service at the time did not indicate when the Stingrays would enter the fleet, but USNI News understands Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson wants the UAVs on carrier decks as early as 2020

[popcorn]

More on the Stingray story. Boeing teaming with GA on the latter's proposal but intending to submit it's own offer as well. EMD contract award targeted for end-2018 with 4 airframes purchased by 2023;


http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18 ... one-tender

[Corsair1963]

I guess they need something to keep St. Louis open.

They'll probably win one of MQ-25 or T-X for industrial base reasons. I've heard rumors the Boeing helped write the MQ-25 RFP, so they're probably in a strong position there.

I wish they would so we could "STOP" buying Super Hornets!

[neptune]

https://news.usni.org/2018/02/20/mq_25a ... more-31417


General Atomics, Boeing Autonomous System Division Team for MQ-25A Bid


By: Ben Werner and Sam LaGrone
February 20, 2018 1:20 PM


The Navy’s pilotless carrier-based air tanker bidders are beginning to announce development partners. After the Navy unveiled its fiscal year 2019 budget request that included $719 million to fund MQ-25A Stingray system development, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems announced it had inked a deal with Boeing, another of the companies submitting a Stingray bid, to work together developing GA’s MQ-25A design. Lockheed Martin is the third company to submit a bid. An award is expected in the fall. Boeing’s own Phantom Works team is developing the company’s MQ-25A offering for the Navy. Speaking to USNI News last week, Chuck Wright, the MQ-25A program director for General Atomics, said GA was teaming with Boeing’s autonomous systems group. “If you think of it from the big Boeing perspective, they’ve got their prime offering, and they might win, but when General Atomics wins, Boeing will win too,” Wright said. “They’re covering their bases.” Wright said the relationship with Boeing is not different from other partnerships General Atomics has with Pratt & Whitney, UTC Aerospace Systems, BAE Systems and L3 Technologies for their Stingray bid. For MQ-25A, Wright said Boeing’s lengthy experience designing carrier-based aircraft and the company’s large testing facilities strengthen the General Atomics bid.

The Navy is counting on the MQ-25A pioneering the integration of piloted and unpiloted operations on carriers. The service plans to field the capability on its carriers to alleviate the strain on the existing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets that are burning through flight hours while serving as a refueling tanker for other aircraft attempting to land on the aircraft carrier. Up to 20 to 30 percent of Super Hornet sorties are refueling missions. “The Department is committed to fielding this game-changing technology as rapidly as practical,” Jamie Cosgrove, a NAVAIR spokeswoman, said in a statement to USNI News. The initial buy is for four MQ-25A. According to a November Aviation Week interview with Rear Adm. Mark Darrah, NAVAIR’s program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons, the Navy is considering purchasing up to 72 MQ-25A aircraft.

Cosgrove also told USNI News the goal for achieving initial operational capability is the mid 2020s, in line with the timeline announced Monday when the program was mentioned during a fiscal year 2019 briefing by Rear Adm. Brian Luther, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget and the director of fiscal management on the Chief of Naval Operations staff. Recently, though, other Navy officials had suggested the MQ-25A could possibly be ready much earlier, within the next two years. Cosgrove told USNI the timeline had always been mid-2020s. She and other Navy spokespersons contacted by USNI did not offer an explanation as to why some officials had recently suggested an earlier timeline. “MQ-25 is expected to provide an Initial Operational Capability to the fleet in the mid-2020s, which is an acceleration of two years from initial estimates for the program,” Cosgrove told USNI News.