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Boeing Unveils Land-Based MQ-25 Autonomous Tanker Design

Brian Everstine September 16, 2024

 

Boeing shared a rendering of the new MQ-25 Land-Based Variant design with Aviation Week ahead of its unveiling Sept. 16.

Credit: Boeing

Boeing is designing a larger, land-based version of its uncrewed MQ-25 tanker, targeting U.S. Air Force (USAF) future refueling plans including topping up Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) in contested airspace.

Company officials say they have been working with the Air Force on the design, which expands the 75-ft. wingspan of the Navy’s Stingray design to 92 ft. The land-based variant would also no longer require the wings to be folded like the carrier-based version, a change that combined with the increased span would provide 40% more space for fuel in the wings.

Boeing officials say the design is worked internally and not directly linked to work the Air Force is undertaking with its Next-Generation Aerial Refueling System (NGAS) analysis of alternatives that is set to wrap this fall. That analysis is expected to include a family-of-systems approach, including a smaller, autonomous tanker for operating in contested environments.

John Scudi, Boeing’s acting MQ-25 advanced capabilities program manager and senior manager of business development, tells Aviation Week the design would also target roles beyond refueling, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, airborne early warning and electronic warfare.

Boeing is unveiling the design Sept. 16 at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air Space & Cyber Conference. The OEM shared a rendering of the design with Aviation Week ahead of the show. It shows the MQ-25 Land Based Variant (LBV) bringing on fuel from a KC-46’s wing refueling pods. The LBV is not designed with its own refueling boom, which would preclude it from topping up USAF combat aircraft, and instead is initially focusing on a hose-and-drogue system.

Instead, Scudi says the LBV’s use could be targeted toward CCAs if the designs can include a receiver probe. This could be potentially adapted for future CCA increments, which are expected to have more exquisite requirements than the first increment. Additionally, the LBV could be used to refuel U.S. Navy fighters already outfitted with receiving receptacles.

Scudi says the LBV’s use is targeted at higher-threat areas where existing tankers, such as the company’s KC-46, would not operate. The MQ-25 could top up from a KC-46 and then move forward into a higher-threat area to refuel combat aircraft.

“How do you operate in a contested environment? Would you do a different idea in terms of providing fuel to the warfighters, especially in an [area of responsibility] that’s as expansive as the Pacific?” Scudi asks.

Boeing’s goal with the LBV is to take advantage of all of the investment from the U.S. Navy in its MQ-25 program of record, with the only change to the aircraft being the expanded wings. Boeing looked at six potential redesigns of the wing to increase the aircraft’s capability, settling on the 92-ft. wingspan after thousands of hours of modeling and simulation for both refueling and other mission sets. The LBV would keep the same fuselage, mission systems and engine—the Rolls Royce AE 3007N.

The expanded wings not only allow the aircraft to carry fuel for its entire wingspan, but also add two additional 3,000-lb. pylon stores that could carry refueling equipment or other systems, including weapons, Scudi says.