The MQ-25™ program successfully conducted the first ever aerial refueling operations between a manned receiver aircraft and unmanned tanker June 4 from MidAmerica Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois.
This successful flight demonstrated that the MQ-25 Stingray can fulfill its tanker mission using the Navy’s standard probe-and-drogue aerial refueling method.
U.S. Navy aviators are already learning how to “fly” the MQ-25 unmanned aerial refueler before the first air vehicle comes off the production line.
Four Navy air vehicle operators (AVOs) from VX-23, the Navy’s developmental test squadron, and VX-1, the operational test squadron, recently traveled to Boeing’s St. Louis facility for an immersive three-day simulation designed to train them to operate a flight from start-up to shut-down from the ground control station (GCS) – the MQ-25’s terrestrial or CVN-based “cockpit.”
The Navy and Boeing successfully completed the first test flight of the MQ-25™, the first operational carrier-based unmanned refueling aircraft Sept. 19 from MidAmerica Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois.
The Boeing-owned MQ-25 test asset, known as T1, completed an FAA-certified autonomous taxi, take-off and flew a pre-determined flight route for a two hour flight to validate the aircraft’s basic flight functions and operations.
The Navy awarded a $41.8 million contract to B.L. Harbert International Jan. 30 to build the MQ-25 Unmanned Air System Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) hangar at Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
The MQ-25A Stingray will be the world’s first carrier-based unmanned aircraft and will provide an aerial refueling capability to the Carrier Air Wing (CVW) to extend its range and make better use of Navy combat strike fighters that currently conduct tanking missions.
The Navy awarded a contract to The Boeing Co. Aug. 30 for the MQ-25A Stingray, the first operational carrier-based unmanned refueling aircraft.
This fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract with a ceiling price of $805.3 million provides for the design, development, fabrication, test, delivery, and support of four MQ-25A unmanned air vehicles, including integration into the carrier air wing for an initial operational capability by 2024.
