MQ25A Drone

[silverado427 10,731]

Man as far as high tech We as a country have our shit together. This UMA is bad azz.

 

[voyager9 3,434]

Go LockMart. Burlco’s biggest employer. 

Though they need to replace that square on the front with this:

[T Bill 649]

Your tax dollars at work, covering everybody's butt every day, no days off.  A shame the liberals have no clue, nor do they care.  Someday they will, but it will be too late. They really have no clue what evil lurks in this world.

[Sota 1,191]

At first I was like, why is the drogue in a pod? Then I see they can make it into a bomber too.

[voyager9 3,434]

22 minutes ago, sota said:

At first I was like, why is the drogue in a pod? Then I see they can make it into a bomber too.

The Navy is actually doing something smart here. This will be the first carrier launched drone. Rather than going for Strike missions (which  have a lot more use-cases, certifications, and failure scenarios to figure out) they’re going for a refueling role initially. 

If successful the same airframe would be used for future designs to incorporate strike requirements. 

The key measures of its success will be loiter time and how much fuel it can effectively carry.  I don’t know how much that external pod would hold. Keep in mind they use F18’s for that now so it may be the same pod. 

[High Exposure 5,664]

4 hours ago, voyager9 said:

Go LockMart. Burlco’s biggest employer. 

Though they need to replace that square on the front with this:

By your command!

[Zeke 5,504]

4 hours ago, voyager9 said:

Go LockMart. Burlco’s biggest employer. 

Though they need to replace that square on the front with this:

Original was better.

[Golf battery 1,223]

Can i get one on ebay

[gleninjersey 2,141]

7 hours ago, Golf battery said:

Can i get one on ebay

Gotta go dark web.  Use Bitcoins to purchase.

[Sota 1,191]

12 hours ago, voyager9 said:

The Navy is actually doing something smart here. This will be the first carrier launched drone. Rather than going for Strike missions (which  have a lot more use-cases, certifications, and failure scenarios to figure out) they’re going for a refueling role initially. 

If successful the same airframe would be used for future designs to incorporate strike requirements. 

The key measures of its success will be loiter time and how much fuel it can effectively carry.  I don’t know how much that external pod would hold. Keep in mind they use F18’s for that now so it may be the same pod. 

I was wondering, is the fuel tank in the pod, or the airframe itself?

Someone needs to develop an airship with a bunch of those drones on board, either fueled for tanker duty or filled by tanks on the airship.  Airships are great for loitering time.  You then deploy the tanker drones when needed.  The idea has some flaws (landing/docking the drones on the airship might not be possible) but who knows?

[Krdshrk 3,877]

It looks like the fuel's in the pod.  The drogue (shuttlecock looking thingy) is connected to the fuel pod.  The one in the video is Lockheed's entry into the competition for the design.

Boeing has a contender for the MQ25 as well as General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc

Boeing's entry:.

GA-ASI's entry:

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2018-04-12/mq-25-contenders-display-us-navy-show

 

This is all pretty cool.  My BIL is an Air Force Aircraft Commander who flies KC-135R Stratotankers.  These drones are supposed to carry 14,000lbs of fuel... which is actually not that much.  That's about the max fuel load of a F18 Super Hornet.  KC-135's and even the new KC-46A Pegasus can transfer over 200,000lbs of fuel. 

[voyager9 3,434]

3 hours ago, sota said:

I was wondering, is the fuel tank in the pod, or the airframe itself?

Someone needs to develop an airship with a bunch of those drones on board, either fueled for tanker duty or filled by tanks on the airship.  Airships are great for loitering time.  You then deploy the tanker drones when needed.  The idea has some flaws (landing/docking the drones on the airship might not be possible) but who knows?

Airships have flaws tho. Mainly they’re a big honking target with little evasion/speed capability. They also take up a ton of space so can only operate from land-bases. I think with the MQ25 they’re thinking it’s easier to recover/refuel from the carrier and not be dependent on land. 

[voyager9 3,434]

1 hour ago, Krdshrk said:

It looks like the fuel's in the pod.  The drogue (shuttlecock looking thingy) is connected to the fuel pod.  The one in the video is Lockheed's entry into the competition for the design.

Boeing has a contender for the MQ25 as well as General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc

Boeing's entry:.

GA-ASI's entry:

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2018-04-12/mq-25-contenders-display-us-navy-show

 

This is all pretty cool.  My BIL is an Air Force Aircraft Commander who flies KC-135R Stratotankers.  These drones are supposed to carry 14,000lbs of fuel... which is actually not that much.  That's about the max fuel load of a F18 Super Hornet.  KC-135's and even the new KC-46A Pegasus can transfer over 200,000lbs of fuel. 

Looks like the fuel load requirement is around 15k lbs so yeah, not much

[Sota 1,191]

Like I said, the idea has flaws.  Question is could they be worked out.  Hell what about a "balloon" the drone carries and inflates, that lets it just stay aloft with little to no fuel consumption, and when its time to play Flying Gas Station (or NOPE out of a bad place), cuts it loose, does the deed, and returns to the carrier/base.

[Sota 1,191]

Bad part about the traditional tanker is it can only service a limited number of aircraft at a time, so if you have a many aircraft strike force needing extended legs, you spend a lot of time (and wasting fuel) waiting for your buddies to get their drink on.  Not to mention flying aft and below a big bird like a -135 -10 makes for a bumpy ride.

Assuming the drones are better at being flying gas tanks, depending on the design maybe you can service 2 aircraft per.
I'd be surprised if the pod really is the refueling tank; it doesn't look big enough to hold that much gas.  And if the 14k# number tossed out earlier is to be used, that's an awful lot of weight hanging off a pylon, and it's asymmetric on the center line.  A thick root flying wing design like shown in the first video could hold quite a bit, since they're going drone style you can cut out all that wasteful human related stuff like survive-ability tubs and redundancies.

 

[Krdshrk 3,877]

33 minutes ago, sota said:

Like I said, the idea has flaws.  Question is could they be worked out.  Hell what about a "balloon" the drone carries and inflates, that lets it just stay aloft with little to no fuel consumption, and when its time to play Flying Gas Station (or NOPE out of a bad place), cuts it loose, does the deed, and returns to the carrier/base.

You have to be moving forward to do a refueling - fighter jets can't hover

19 minutes ago, sota said:

Bad part about the traditional tanker is it can only service a limited number of aircraft at a time, so if you have a many aircraft strike force needing extended legs, you spend a lot of time (and wasting fuel) waiting for your buddies to get their drink on.  Not to mention flying aft and below a big bird like a -135 -10 makes for a bumpy ride.

Assuming the drones are better at being flying gas tanks, depending on the design maybe you can service 2 aircraft per.
I'd be surprised if the pod really is the refueling tank; it doesn't look big enough to hold that much gas.  And if the 14k# number tossed out earlier is to be used, that's an awful lot of weight hanging off a pylon, and it's asymmetric on the center line.  A thick root flying wing design like shown in the first video could hold quite a bit, since they're going drone style you can cut out all that wasteful human related stuff like survive-ability tubs and redundancies.

Flying behind a tanker isn't bad - and tankers can refuel 2 planes at once if equipped with the right gear.

[Sota 1,191]

you missed the "cut it loose" part in the first quote of mine.

and yea, multi craft servicing can be done, unless you're chair force (then it's single craft and DA BOOM BABY!)

[voyager9 3,434]

2 hours ago, sota said:

Like I said, the idea has flaws.  Question is could they be worked out.  Hell what about a "balloon" the drone carries and inflates, that lets it just stay aloft with little to no fuel consumption, and when its time to play Flying Gas Station (or NOPE out of a bad place), cuts it loose, does the deed, and returns to the carrier/base.

The drone won’t replace the big tankers. It will mainly replace using F18’s that the carrier does now. That frees up those aircraft for more important missions. It also lets the Navy cut its teeth with the drone without jumping right to more complicated missions like strike. 

[Ray Ray 3,566]

 

On a serious note, what we build design, create and manufacture the Chinese steal.