Skunk Works viser frem MQ-25 Stingray - Fremtiden er her - AW&ST

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works Reveals MQ-25 ‘Stingray’ James Drew  Lockheed Martin Skunk Works is best known for military reconnaissance planes and stealth fighters, and much of its work is cloaked in a veil of secrecy. The advanced development programs group headquartered in Palmdale, California, is responsible for the famed U-2, SR-71, F-117, YF-22, X-35 and RQ-170, to name a few, but now its engineers and craftsmen are applying their skills to something completely different: an unmanned tanker UAV for U.S. aircraft carriers. Design for the MQ-25 was solidified in mid-2017T Team is aiming for U.S. Navy’s ‘objective requirements’ with flying-wing design   For this project, you will not need a security clearance to see what the “Skunks” are up to. Lockheed has exclusively revealed to Aviation Week its offering for the U.S. Navy’s multibillion-dollar MQ-25 “Stingray” program, in the middle of a competitive source selection, with the aim of fielding up to 72 fighter-size drones as refueling assets on the Nimitz- and Ford-class vessels. If selected, Lockheed’s aircraft would become the world’s first large UAV designed for carrier operations. Skunk Works has responded to the Navy’s MQ-25 request for proposals (RFP) with a single-engine, all-wing UAV that, if built, could autonomously refuel manned strike fighters as they head into combat. With the ability to take off and land from U.S. supercarriers, the bat-wing drone would become part of the Navy’s carrier air wing, eventually taking over the “buddy tanking” role from the overstretched Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet sometime in the mid-2020s. It will be capable of topping up any manned or unmanned aircraft with a refueling probe. At a minimum, the flying gas tank will be capable of offloading 14,000 lb. of fuel more than 500 nm away from the carrier at sea, which is the minimum or “threshold” requirement. But Skunk Works is confident its design has what it takes to meet the Navy’s undisclosed objective requirement for more fuel offloaded at even greater distances. Skunk Works officials revealed to Aviation Week their proposal for what could become the Navy’s biggest drone program after the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton, a high-altitude maritime patrol aircraft that enters service this year. Aviation Week spoke with Rob Weiss, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics’ executive vice president and general manager of Skunk Works, who will retire at the end of the year; John Vinson, MQ-25 program manager; John Clark, vice president of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and unmanned aerial systems (UAS); and Craig Johnson, head of MQ-25 business development and strategy. As depicted in these exclusive images, the team in Palmdale has come up with a radical design that is a substantial departure from its previous flying-wing designs, such as the U.S. Air Force’s RQ-170 Sentinel and the Sea Ghost, the latter of which had been specifically crafted for the Navy’s previous request for a stealthy surveillance and strike UAV. In fact, the Skunk Works MQ-25 design, with its relatively straight trailing edge, more closely resembles a single-engine version of the McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II, or perhaps the grandfather of jet-powered flying-wing aircraft, Germany’s Horten Ho-229.

Lockheed Martin believes a flying-wing aircraft offers the best combination of aerodynamic efficiency, fuel capacity and spot factor, given the limited real estate on a carrier deck. Credit: Lockheed Martin Concept

Skunk Works has not built a flying prototype for reasons that will be explained. The design depicted in these artist's renderings was finalized in mid-2017, just after the Navy solidified its final requirements for MQ-25. It is the basis for Lockheed’s response to the Oct. 4, 2017, RFP. The Skunk Works aircraft is challenging alternative designs proposed by Boeing Phantom Works and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI). Northrop Grumman, the company responsible for the famed X-47B demonstrator, bowed out because its leadership decided against chasing a fixed-price development contract for a utility aircraft. Unlike Boeing and General Atomics, which have proposed more traditional wing-body-tail designs, Skunk Works has gone all-in with the flying wing, saying this type of design is better suited to the high-volume, long-endurance tanking mission within a constrained “spot factor” on the deck. Unlike the Triton, which operates from traditional 3,000-ft. runways on land, the MQ-25 will be catapulted off a 300-ft. runway at high speed from a ship at sea and then land with the assistance of an arresting hook. The margin for error is zero. For someone like Weiss, who flew the S-3 Viking in the Navy and will retire this year after a 34-year career with Lockheed, shooting UAVs laden with jet fuel off a ship in rough seas (day or night) is a realistic and achievable goal. That is, of course, as long as the requirements do not shift. In the past, the Navy vacillated. Its requirements for the defunct Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (Uclass) program kept shifting between the stealthy, deep-strike mission and more benign long-range armed reconnaissance. In early 2016, the Navy finally abandoned Uclass in favor of the MQ-25 Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System concept with stable requirements and a clearly articulated path forward. During those wilderness years of Uclass, Weiss says Lockheed decided against investing in a flying prototype, for fear the requirements would keep changing. Skunk Works opted to focus its time and money on other efforts, such as trade studies, software development, open architectures and manufacturing affordability initiatives. “We didn’t feel at the time it was prudent to invest in a demonstrator aircraft,” he says. “With any program you work on, you’ve got to follow the customer’s lead. We tried not to get out in front of them by designing an airplane that was still evolving in terms of the requirements.”

The Skunk Works MQ-25 has cameras on its nose, giving the air vehicle operator at the control terminal at least the same situational awareness on the flight deck as a pilot in a manned platform. Credit: Lockheed Martin Concept

Weiss notes that since the Navy hit the reset button and switched focus to an unmanned refueling aircraft, the requirements development process has been much more stable. This has allowed the team to come up with a purpose-built, clean-sheet aircraft optimized for tanking, rather than a more complex and expensive stealthy surveillance and strike platform. Following a visit to Palmdale by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson early in his tenure, Skunk Works fully committed to the tanker effort. It assessed several possibilities, from repurposing existing aircraft to new wing-body-tail designs. Weiss says a flying-wing concept was always in the mix, and it kept coming out on top. A flying-wing aircraft has the benefit of being aerodynamically efficient and can carry more fuel for its size. Other benefits include a lower total parts count and reduced spot factor on the carrier deck with the wingtips folded up. Despite the flying-wing design being shorter in length, the landing gear and tail hook have enough separation to safely catch the arresting gear, rather than trip over it. Even though Lockheed had been pursuing the W-shaped flying-wing Sea Ghost concept for Uclass, Weiss says Skunk Works has approached the MQ-25 with an open mind, unprejudiced by past efforts. In contrast, Boeing is sticking with an air vehicle that was designed in 2012 and rolled out in 2014 under Uclass. GA-ASI is proposing a tanker derivative of its existing Predator C “Avenger.” “We began this activity shortly after the cancellation of Uclass, and our focus was to understand what the Navy’s requirements were for this tanker,” Weiss explains. “We conducted a number of trade studies about different configurations, all with the very focused intent of providing the Navy with the most capable tanker at the lowest cost and lowest risk. We now feel very confident that we’re at the right design point for our customer’s requirements and schedule.” Although this is a clean-sheet aircraft, Skunk Works has pillaged from other programs to incorporate ready-made subsystems and mature technologies. For instance, the landing gear for the MQ-25 comes from Lockheed’s F-35C Lightning II, the Navy’s newest strike fighter.

The MQ-25 will take advantage of Raytheon’s all-weather, GPS-based Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS). Credit: Lockheed Martin Concept

That landing gear is produced by United Technologies Aerospace Systems, but Lockheed will not say where any of its other components come from, to preserve its competitive stance. The company will not even name the engine manufacturer, because that would give rivals greater insight into the UAV’s range and performance parameters. To meet the mission objective, Skunk Works has probably selected a modern, high-bypass turbofan from the commercial sector. For instance, GA-ASI has selected Pratt & Whitney Canada’s newly certified PW815, which powers Gulfstream’s newest long-range business jet, the G600. Alternatives include the GE Aviation Passport, which powers Bombardier’s new Global 7000, or Rolls-Royce’s BR700 series. For Vinson, knowing a competitor’s choice of engine is very helpful. “We’re taking the inverse approach, the Skunk Works way of keeping quiet, for the most part,” he says. Vinson does confirm that his MQ-25 is a single-engine design for reasons of simplicity, efficiency and affordability. He says the proposal adopts technologies, subsystems and features from other aircraft within Lockheed’s ISR/UAS portfolio, as well as from other aircraft in the Navy inventory. The initial MQ-25 contract will be a fixed-price deal for development, funding a limited run of four engineering and manufacturing development (EMD 1-4) models. If successfully developed and tested, the Navy will negotiate follow-on contracts for the production phase, with a projected buy of about 72 aircraft. Since the quantities are not very high, Skunk Works wants to keep risk low and avoid having to invent technologies along the way. “When we do a limited-production-run program, where development cost is the key driver, where we want to go fast, we try to use as many systems off the shelf as possible,” he says. “We don’t want to invent anything that doesn’t have to be invented, so we’re using all the tricks here, just as we did on the U-2 or F-117. Our rule is usually ‘one miracle per program.’” For Lockheed’s MQ-25 proposal, the company does not believe it will have to pull off any technological miracles, saying it is more of a “packaging effort.” Having said that, the team concedes that launching and landing on an aircraft carrier is not easy, and they will have to incorporate the Navy’s Raytheon Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS). That is in the final stages of development, with initial operational capability expected in 2019 and full operational capability around 2030, according to Naval Air Systems Command. The greatest miracle, according to Johnson, will be the Navy’s acceptance of a large UAV as part of the carrier air wing and addressing all the safety and cultural issues that go along with that. “That’s part of the carrier suitability effort,” he says. To ensure carrier suitability, Skunk Works has been using a “small, turbine-powered trainer aircraft” for deck-handling demonstrations. The company has several F-16Fs registered in its name, but it would not specify which aircraft it is using as a surrogate. “It’s not important that the deck-handling demonstration looks like the airplane we’re going to build,” Clarke says. “The emphasis is on the instrumentation, the communications links and the operations interface the pilot or air vehicle operator wants to work with.” To get a better sense of operations on an aircraft carrier, the team went aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69). The visit strengthened the team’s conviction that its proposed deck-handling system should not add to the workload of the aircraft handlers and directors or require any additional people on the carrier deck. For this reason, the Skunk Works aircraft has wide-aperture cameras in the nose, which allow the operator to see everything, possibly even more than a pilot in the physical cockpit of a manned carrier aircraft sees, including hand and wand gestures. “It’s a very hazardous environment,” Vinson says. “We don’t want to have any more people wandering around in that very congested flight-deck environment.” If one studies Lockheed’s design closely, several things are evident. First, the aircraft is not designed to be low-observable with a reduced radar cross-section—one of the most noticeable departures from the Sea Ghost. “There’s no credit given for stealth. We’ve gone with the flying-wing design for efficient operation,” Vinson explains. “Most tankers carry fuel in the wing to distribute the weight of the fuel with the lift of the wing, and since that is what the majority of the payload is, we’re doing an all-wing design.” Vinson notes that the aircraft has “very conventional, low-risk” top-mounted subsonic engine inlets, and the bump on its crown houses the satellite communications dish. The aircraft will have radios and data links as well as a traditional sensor ball for “light ISR.”

The MQ-25 tanker will greatly extend the range of Navy strike fighters such as the Lockheed F-35C and Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet as they head into combat. Credit: Lockheed Martin Concept

The Cobham air-to-air drogue refueling pod is seen mounted left of the centerline between the landing gears, affording space for the engine to be dropped out, swapped and repaired without having to remove stores. There are two hard points underneath the aircraft (left and right), the second accommodating a future sensor, such as a sea-surveillance radar or signals-intelligence pod. In pursuing the MQ-15, Weiss makes clear that this is solely a Skunk Works pursuit. It will not be handed off to another division within Lockheed Martin, if it is successful. Like the U-2 Dragon Lady and F-117 Nighthawk, Skunk Works intends to support the aircraft throughout its life cycle, including development, production and sustainment. “We would have all elements of the program,” Weiss confirms. “We’re still doing phased depot maintenance on the U-2 today. We want to partner with the Navy throughout the MQ-25’s life cycle.” Lockheed will not say where the aircraft will be built, if the program transitions into production. The first four development aircraft would probably come out of Palmdale, but this has not been confirmed. As a rapid-development Maritime Accelerated Capability Office program, Weiss believes the MQ-25 is an ideal program for Skunk Works. He says the company has a proven track record of moving fast on national security programs, and the team is ready to do it again for the MQ-25. He will not say how soon Skunk Works could have its first aircraft in the air, since that is one point on which all the competitors are scored. However, Skunk Works believes it can meet all objective requirements for cost, capability and schedule. “Every time we walk onto the field, our intent is to win,” Weiss says. “We’re going out strong, we’re going out confident, and we’re playing to win.”