Initially born with the same purpose as all the others of its kin, the Stingray diverted from its intended life and somehow turned into a pilotless aerial tanker, the first of its kind, that has immediately attracted the attention of the U.S. Navy.
The military branch has been testing the design for a while now and performed the first flight of the aircraft in the spring of this year. So impressed were these guys with the tech that they declared Milestone C approval and sent the Stingray into Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP).
And now the moment has come for the Navy to make good on its promises – and that’s exactly what it did. As per the requirements of the LRIP, the Navy has officially handed Boeing a contract for three of these Stingrays.
The value of the contract is $562 million, which would put the cost of one of these things at around $187 million. Boeing is to deliver the first example of the drone in 2029, with two other contracts for three and five more drones, respectively, in the pipeline – in all, the MQ-25A program of record is 76 units large, including four engineering examples and five demonstration units, and has an estimated value of $13 billion.
The Stingray, which is by all intents and purposes the world’s first fully integrated, carrier-based drone, will be used by the Navy first and foremost as a refueling platform, in a bid to relieve the F/A-18 Super Hornets of their role in buddy refueling missions and allow them to focus on their main mission of multi-role strike fighters.
To do this, the aircraft carries a 15,000-pound (6,800 kg) fuel tank called the aerial refueling store (ARS), and can supply it to other aircraft mid-flight. But that won’t stop it from performing the ISR missions it has originally been designed to perform, if need be. Why, thanks to the couple of underwing hardpoints it is equipped with, it could also be used to strike targets with anti-ship missiles.
On a performance level, the MQ-25A flies thanks to a single Rolls-Royce AE 3007N engine, and can do so for as many as 580 miles (930 km) on a single outing. While it can taxi, take off, and land all on its own, it allows remote control either from the ground or from the cockpits of Block II and III Super Hornets.
At the time of writing, there are seven test aircraft in production at the Boeing facilities in St. Louis, Missouri, and Mascoutah, Illinois. Testing is, for now, being conducted at the MidAmerica facility, but they will later move to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, where carrier qualification testing will take place.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
