Mechquest trainer 20198/13/2023 ![]() ![]() Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce provides power for the MQ-25A with a single AE 3007N engine, the same powerplant in the Global Hawk/Triton family. In 2018, Boeing won the contract with the MQ-25, against rival bids from General Atomics and Lockheed Martin, although the latter will now work with Boeing and the USN to pervade the Stingray (Ground Control Station) GCS. However, following this the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) requirements were then reset by the Navy, from a stealthy strike/ISR drone to a refuelling tanker Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) with ISR as secondary mission. This then evolved into the US Navy UCAS-D, with the Northrop Grumman X-47D Pegasus performing the first-ever arrested landing of a UAV on a carrier at sea in 2013. The Boeing MQ-25 Stingray has complex origins, first arising out of the US DARPA J-UCAS programme for a stealthy strike drone. The Boeing MQ-25A performs the first ever refuelling of a piloted receiver aircraft, June 2021. The current programme of record is for the US Navy to acquire 69 MQ-25s. ![]() First flying in 2019, the MQ-25A UAV is currently in the EMD (Engineering and Manufacturing Development) and flight test phase and is expected to enter service with the US Navy on Ford and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers in 2025. However, what made this event, on 4 June, an aviation milestone was that it was the first ever refueling of a piloted receiver aircraft (a Boeing F-18F Super Hornet) by an unpiloted tanker – the Boeing MQ-25A Stingray. Last summer, two naval aircraft came together over the US to perform an air-to-air refueling mission – itself an unnatural act in where instead of jet aircraft keeping apart, they fly in close proximity just feet apart. TIM ROBINSON FRAeS reports on the Boeing MQ-25A Stingray aerial tanker – set to be the first uncrewed fixed-wing aircraft to join a US Navy carrier air wing. ![]() In a nondescript hangar in MidAmerica Airport, St Louis, sits a futuristic flying machine. ![]()
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