MQ-25 Control Concept

The Navy’s unmanned tanker, the MQ-25, is supposed to be able to take off, fuel aircraft, and land, all autonomously.  That’s quite an accomplishment and, if successful, adds a vital tanking capability without adding remote pilots or requiring complicated control communications schemes which would add to the burdens of a carrier rather than subtracting from them.  It is the hands-off nature of the unmanned tanker that is appealing.

 

However, the latest rumblings from the Navy hint at a somewhat different story.

 

Boeing has successfully demonstrated for the first time the ability for the P-8A maritime patrol aircraft to take control of the MQ-25 Stingray drone mid-flight …

 

The event was a follow-up to a demonstration to one the company held last year which showed how the Stingray, the Navy’s new carrier-based, unmanned aerial tanker, could be controlled by an F/A-18 Super Hornet or E-2D Advanced Hawkeye pilot mid-flight while performing its core tanking mission.[1]

 

This is moving into dangerous territory.  Is this suggesting that a supervisory aircraft will need to be present in order for the unmanned tanker to perform its task?  That would be a very disappointing development – almost an overall negative for a carrier air wing that has few enough aircraft, as it is, and can ill afford to dedicate a control aircraft to babysit an unmanned tanker.

 

However, I think this suggesting that the Navy could, via an intermediary aircraft, take control of a tanker in order to issue new mission orders.

 

The value in pilots being able to task MQ-25s mid-flight lies within a core assumption the Navy — and more broadly the Pentagon — has about the future battlefield: all communications will be subject to attack. The shipboard controllers may not always have contact or permission to communicate with the MQ-25 depending on the situation. If that’s the case, then a pilot of a nearby manned aircraft may need to redirect the unmanned tanker without assistance from the ship.[1]

 

Of course, this raised the question, if the shipboard controller can’t communicate with the unmanned tanker due to enemy disruption of communications, why would we think that we’ll be able to communicate with the manned aircraft to tell the pilot to redirect the unmanned one?  That’s a logical inconsistency.  Military thinking just teems with this kind of logical inconsistency.

 

Here’s a bit of additional delusion and logical inconsistency:

 

“If you’re doing an ISR mission, you can be doing an ISR mission with this airplane [the unmanned tanker] 1,000 miles from the carrier,” he said. “You’re not going to be talking to the carrier to do that ISR mission. More than likely you might be talking to a P-8.”[1]

 

If you believe a large, slow, non-stealthy, broadcasting surveillance aircraft like the P-8 is going to survive to operate a thousand miles from a carrier, in enemy controlled/contested air and water, you’re deluding yourself.  And, in a bit of logical inconsistency, if you can survivably operate a P-8 in the area then you don’t need an unmanned tanker/surveillance aircraft because the P-8 can do it.

 

This attempt to redirect and repurpose an unmanned tanker into other missions is typical of the Navy.  Instead of developing a single function and getting it to work at an affordable price, the Navy is already attempting to add additional tasks and control schemes onto an as yet unproven aircraft.  Common sense says to develop the main functionality first before moving on to others.

 

 

 

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[1]Breaking Defense website, “Boeing successfully demos MQ-25 control through P-8, autonomy software”, Justin Katz, 8-Sep-2022,

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/09/boeing-successfully-demos-mq-25-control-through-p-8-autonomy-software/

Northrop Pulls Out Of Unmanned Tanker Competition

Northrop has announced that it is pulling out of the competition to build the Navy’s MQ-25 unmanned tanker.  As you recall, there were four competitors: Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.  Northrop’s explanation is cryptic, to say the least.  Here’s the statement from Northrop CEO Wes Bush.

“When we’re looking at one of these opportunities, let me be clear, our objective is not just to win.  …we really look hard at executability under the terms of [requests for proposals] that come out to make sure that we can execute.” (1)

So, something in the Request For Proposals (RFP) made Northrop believe that they couldn’t meet the requirements.  This is all the more odd given that the RFP was structured to have very few actual requirements.  In fact, the only requirement that has been revealed is the informal statement by Navy personnel that the tanker would deliver around 15,000 lbs of fuel at 500 miles.

Northrop was assumed to propose their X-47 as the basis for their tanker.  In fact, given that the X-47 was used in actual carrier landing and takeoff tests, Northrop was assumed to have a huge advantage in the competition.  That they would feel that advantage was insufficient makes their decision even harder to understand.  If Northrop’s actual carrier UAV operational experience isn’t adequate to meet the RFP, what does that say about the other competitor’s offerings and capabilities?

Another possibility is that the X-47 is simply incapable of meeting the fuel capacity and distance requirements.  The flying wing type of UAV may be simply unsuited for the task.  Perhaps the stealthy body size and shape does not allow sufficient fuel carriage?

It is also possible that Northrop felt that a stealthy flying wing would be inherently more expensive than a more conventional wing-fuselage-tail design and unable to compete on a cost basis.  If so, it’s worth noting that the General Atomics design, the only other design we’ve seen, is a conventional design and may hold a cost advantage.

Recall, also, that we’ve discussed the vulnerability of non-stealthy support aircraft so stealth may be an attractive feature in an aircraft that is expected to operate hundreds of miles from the carrier and within range of enemy aircraft and long range missiles.  The Chinese are developing a very long range air-to-air missile for the explicit purpose of attacking high value support aircraft like the E-2 Hawkeye, AWACS, P-8, tankers, etc.

The other interesting aspect of this is that this is the second occurrence of major defense firms pulling out of contract competition.  You’ll recall that the Navy’s competition for the over the horizon (OTH) anti-ship missile saw all but one of the competitors pull out after the RFP was released.  We discussed this at the time (see, “LRASM Drops Out Of OTH Competition”) and noted that it was a development with several negative consequences, not the least of which was that the lack of competition was an invitation to price gouging by the only remaining competitor.  At the time, I speculated that the Navy had pre-selected the company that they wanted to win the OTH competition and had written the RFP so as to ensure that only that company could meet the requirements.  Could this be a similar case?  Has the Navy already pre-selected a winner?  If more companies pull out of the tanker competition then this may be what’s happening.

X-47 - Out!

I would hate to think that pre-selecting competition winners, if that’s what’s happening, is the latest Navy trend given all the negatives associated with such a practice.  Had the OTH competition fiasco not just occurred, I wouldn’t give Northrop’s actions, in this case, much thought but now this looks suspiciously like a trend towards pre-selecting winners.

Of course, it’s also quite possible that this is just a business/investment/financial decision by Northrop, pure and simple, in which case there’s nothing to be seen here and we can all move on.

We’ll keep a close eye on this competition and see what develops.

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(1)USNI News website, “Northrop Grumman Drops Out of MQ-25A Stingray Competition”, Sam LaGrone, 25-Oct-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/10/25/northrop-grumman-drops-mq-25a-stingray-competition

Navy Aerial Tanker Update

Details on the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray unmanned tanker have been hard to come by, especially the most relevant ones like fuel loads and range.  Now, however, we see some details in a USNI News article (1).

“Air Boss Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker said the service’s goal was for the Navy’s first operational carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle to be able to deliver about 15,000 pounds of fuel at 500 nautical miles from the carrier to the air wing’s strike fighters, which would almost double their operational range.”

So, that’s interesting … 15,000 lbs of fuel at 500 nm from the carrier.  Let’s examine that a bit closer.

An F-18 Super Hornet has an internal fuel capacity of around 14,000 lbs.  So, the unmanned tanker could completely refuel one aircraft.  Of course, that’s not exactly how refueling works.  Each aircraft would receive a lesser amount of fuel, say 5,000 lbs.  Thus, the tanker could refuel three aircraft.  I think you can see where this is going.  If there are 30 aircraft in a strike package, and each needed 5,000 lbs of fuel, it would require 10 tankers.  That’s a LOT of tankers.  Of course, more tankers would be required for the carrier overhead/recovery tanking.  We’re looking at around 16 tankers in our strike/recovery scenario.  Yikes!

Now let’s refer back to that quote and the phrase, “double their operational range”.  Here’s the relevant range figure according to the article.

“The strike range of a carrier air wing is now only about 450 nautical miles – the effective unrefueled radius of a Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.”

That range figure is exceedingly optimistic but, hey, let’s work with it for the sake of discussion.

So, if it took 15,000 lbs of fuel to achieve an operational range of 450 nm, adding 5,000 lbs of extra fuel (36% of the aircraft’s full fuel capacity) isn’t going to double the aircraft’s range, it’s going to increase the range by 36% which is an extra 160 nm.  Yes, I know the range calculations aren’t a simple linear function.  I’m just illustrating the concept.  No matter how you look at it, we aren’t going to double an aircraft’s range by adding a small fraction of additional fuel.  The only way we can double the range is to do a complete refueling which takes us back to a 1:1 tanker:aircraft ratio.  In that case, our example strike of 30 aircraft would require 30 tankers!

Does no one in the Navy run these simple calculations?  Apparently not.

Let’s refer back to the excellent post by guest author George Bustamante, “Why The Navy Needs A Really Large Tanker” (2).  In that article, he lists fuel capacities of various tankers and demonstrates why a capacity of 15,000 lbs of fuel is insufficient for a mission tanker.  For example, the old KA-3 Skywarrior tanker carried 29,000 lbs of fuel  - almost double that of the proposed unmanned tanker.  At the high (and useful) end, the KC-135 carries 150,000 lbs!

The MQ-25 Stingray, with a 15,000 lb fuel capacity barely duplicates the current F-18 Super Hornet tanker capacity of ~16,000 lbs.  The F-18 isn’t considered a mission tanker so how will the MQ-25 which barely duplicates the F-18 tanker’s load suddenly and magically become an effective mission tanker?  Unless we’re going to build lots and lots of these unmanned tankers, I just don’t see this as an effective solution for mission tanking – for overhead/recovery tanking, yes, but mission tanking, no.

So, we have fraudulent claims about doubling the air wing’s range combined with an utterly ineffective mission tanker specification.  I don’t see a good outcome, here.  Yes, it can free up the Hornet from overhead/recovery tanking, which is good, but it leaves the Navy with short ranged aircraft and still no effective mission tanker.  The Navy had an opportunity to do something that could significantly enhance the air wing’s combat effectiveness and apparently have declined to do so.  Baffling.

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(1)USNI News website, “MQ-25 Stingray Unmanned Aerial Tanker Could Almost Double Strike Range of U.S. Carrier Air Wing”, Sam LaGrone, 31-Aug-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/08/31/mq-25-stingray-unmanned-aerial-tanker-almost-double-strike-range-u-s-carrier-air-wing

(2)Navy Matters blog, “Why The Navy Needs A Really Large Tanker”, George Bustamante, 22-Aug-2016,

http://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2016/08/why-navy-needs-really-large-tanker.html

Navy Issues Tanker RFP

The Navy has issued a draft Request For Proposals (RFP) to industry for the planned carrier based unmanned aerial tanker, the MQ-25A Stingray, and the RFP has some interesting points and aspects to it.

First, the RFP has only two key performance parameters (KPP) and both are generic to the point of useless.  They are:

1. Carrier compatibility – the aircraft must be able to operate from a carrier and use existing catapult and recovery systems.  Duh.
2. Mission tanking – the aircraft must be capable of aerial tanking.  Again, duh.

The Navy believes this will provide greater flexibility to industry and, ultimately, to the Navy when it comes to the design of the aircraft.  Personally, I think this approach is wrong.  I think performance parameters need to be specified – speed, range, endurance, reliability, fuel capacity, etc.  Without those specs, there’s no guarantee that you’ll wind up with an aircraft that can do the job.  Frankly, this is just the Navy passing design responsibility off to industry in an attempt to avoid accountability if the program tanks (no pun intended).

On the plus side, the Navy is indicating that development should be minimized by using nothing but existing technology.

“…the new airframe effort is less about developing new tech and more about mixing and matching existing systems to make unmanned tanking a reality on the carrier.” (1)

If the Navy can actually hold to this intent, this is a monumental leap forward in common sense acquisition practice.  There is nothing about aerial refueling that requires the development of new technology.  If the Navy can hold to this intent, the resulting costs and timeline should be quite reasonable.  Unfortunately, the Navy has a very hard time resisting gold plating programs after they’ve started.  It will be interesting to see whether they can restrain themselves.

On a related note, if the Navy can actually hold to this intent, it will make an interesting contrast to the Air Force’s tanker program (admittedly, the two programs are vastly different in scope and mission) which has been a dismal failure and this program could actually become an example for how to do acquisition.  As I said, we’ll take a wait and see approach.

I’m extremely ambivalent about an unmanned tanker.  Most of the claims for it are suspect or false. 

• It won’t reduce manning much, if at all.  For every pilot removed from the cockpit, one has to take their place at a controller of some sort.

• It offers no greater endurance because its endurance will be limited by the size of the fuel tanks it will carry.  Once the tanks are empty, the aircraft will have to return to the carrier just like a manned tanker would.

• It offers no cost savings.  An aircraft is an aircraft.  If you want a plane that can travel x miles, at y speed it’s going to cost the same whether there’s a seat in it or not.  In fact, when the additional shipboard control stations are factored into the cost, it will probably be more expensive.

• There will be inevitable in-flight aircraft failures, as with any aircraft, and without a crew to deal with it and attempt to remedy it, many aircraft may be forced to abort their missions.

• UAVs have a solid historical record of crashing with some regularity.  The data on this is quite clear.  While losing a UAV is no big deal, losing a tanker affects many aircraft and missions.

Honestly, I don’t really see any concrete advantage to an unmanned tanker.  The only “advantage” is that the Navy gains experience in operating unmanned aircraft in preparation for the time when they try to operate unmanned combat aircraft and, to be honest, this alone may be sufficient justification for the unmanned tanker.

Overall, I like the start to this program.  I’m quite pleased that the Navy is going to at least attempt to produce an aircraft using nothing but existing technology for a routine mission.  If they can hold to the intent, it will be a major accomplishment and could set a pattern for future acquisitions.

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(1)USNI News website, “Navy Issues New MQ-25A Stingray Draft RFP to Industry Ahead of Final RFP in the Fall”, Sam LaGrone, 20-Jul-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/07/20/navy-issues-new-mq-25a-stingray-draft-rfp-industry-ahead-final-rfp-fall

Incapable of Learning

The Navy appears utterly incapable of learning.  What lessons have we documented on this blog that have simply and thoroughly smacked the Navy in the face?  How about this one, in particular,

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Don’t try to combine disparate functions into a single platform.  That just leads to a platform that can’t do any of the functions well, costs a fortune to develop due to trying to reconcile contradictory requirements, and delivers years late for the same reasons.

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So, what is the Navy trying to do now?  That’s right, they’re trying to combine intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) with tanking in the upcoming MQ-25 Stingray unmanned tanker.  From a USNI News article (1) we see that the Navy dimly recognizes the problem and the inherent design conflict.

“The problem that industry and the service are dealing with is the ISR and the tanking mission inherently requires two very different types of aircraft shapes or planforms, Shoemaker [Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker] said.

A primarily ISR UAV would be a high-endurance platform “probably not carry a lot of fuel, have a large wingspan,” to be an efficient platform, Shoemaker said.

For example, the highflying Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton UAV is built with a 131 foot wingspan and can fly unrefueled for up to 30 hours.

“If you’re going to be a tanker at range, you’re obliviously going to have to be able to carry a fair amount of fuel internal to the platform. That drives the different design for those two,” he said.”

Okay, so the Navy sees the problem. It’s the same problem they had when they tried to combine three radically different aircraft into a single F-35 and wound up with a gagstaggeringly (you like that word?) expensive aircraft that has only 20% commonality and isn’t optimized for any of the individual roles.  It’s the same problem they had when they tried to combine strike and fighter into a single F-18 Hornet and got an aircraft that was good at neither.  It’s the same problem they had when they tried to combine three completely different functions into a single LCS and wound up with a toothless waste of a ship class that has yet to put to sea with any meaningful capability.  And so on.

Having had these lessons stomphammered (I’m writing my own dictionary) home, what does the Navy decide to do about attempting to reconcile irreconcilable functions on a single platform?  Do they heed the lessons?  Do they do the smart thing?  Do they demonstrate that they’re capable of learning?  No, as evidenced by this,

”So the industry is working on an analysis of where that sweet spot is to do both of those missions.”

Sweet spot?  There is no sweet spot!  You’re combining ketchup and ice cream and thinking you’ll find the right mix that will taste good.  It’ll suck!

Since the Navy is too stupid to learn a lesson, here is the proper approach.

Build a single function, stripped down, dumb as dirt, basic as you can get, tanker.  It doesn’t need any military capability whatsoever.  It’s a flying gas station.  Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS).  Build these for next to nothing.

Build a dedicated ISR aircraft that does one thing only and does it exceedingly well.  Add no function that does not support ISR and keep it cheap.  When combat starts, these things will get shot down like Junior guys asking Senior girls to the prom so make them cheap enough to be readily expendable.

This is just simple common sense.  Don’t build a Formula 1 racer with a  pickup bed so that it can haul cargo when it isn’t racing.  It won’t do either job very well.  There’s a reason why we build separate race cars and pickup trucks.

The Navy’s ability to shrug off lessons and learn nothing never ceases to stunfound (I’m on a roll) me and this is just the latest example.  How the single digit morons running the Navy manage to get dressed in the morning is nothing short of a miracle – but I guess that’s what Admiral’s aides are for.

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(1)USNI News website, “Navy, Industry Looking for Design ‘Sweet Spot’ for MQ-25A Stingray”, Sam LaGrone, August 18, 2016,

https://news.usni.org/2016/08/18/navy-industry-design-sweet-mq-25a-stingray-missions

Unmanned Tanker - The Hard Part Is Done

As you know, the Navy is developing an unmanned tanker for carrier work.

“After months of deliberation, the name and designation of the Navy’s first carrier unmanned aerial vehicle are now official: MQ-25A Stingray …” (1)

Really?  It takes us “months of deliberation” just to come up with the name and designation?!  No wonder we can’t build an F-35 in under two decades!  Well, at least the hard part of coming up with a cool sounding name is out of the way.  

I wonder how long it will take us to develop an unmanned tanker if it took us months just to come up with a name?  Of course, we’ll be able to develop a simple tanker in a lot less time than the F-35, won’t we?  

“The emphasis on the first airframe in the program is primarily aerial refueling, officials said.  ’We’re probably going to drop some of the high-end specs and try to grow the class and increase the survivability [later],’ Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources, told USNI News in February.  ’It has to be more refueling, a little bit of ISR, weapons later and focus on its ability to be the flying truck.’ ” (1)

Well, that should shorten the developmental cycle, right?

“The final RfP [Request for Proposal] for the air segment is set for 2018.” (1)

It’s going to take us a year and half to two years just to generate an RfP?  That doesn’t bode well for how long the actual aircraft will take to be fielded.

“The service hopes to have the first Stingrays operational in the 2020s.” (1)

Let’s be generous and say the MQ-25 will be operational in 2025.  That’s 9 years from now.  Nine years to field a not terribly advanced tanker with a little ISR capability – and, of course, we know that schedule will slip.  So, close to a decade to field a simple unmanned tanker based on existing unmanned technology.  No wonder the F-35 is taking so long!  There is something seriously wrong with our developmental cycles.

If it is truly going to take a decade or more to field a tanker, maybe we should be seriously looking at bringing back the S-3 Viking as an interim tanker.  The Marines are bringing old F-18s back from the boneyard in short order so why not bring the Viking back?  If we don’t, we’re looking at ten more years of wear and tear on our front line tanker-Hornets.  That’s wear and tear we can’t afford.

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(1)USNI website, “It’s Official: ‘MQ-25A Stingray’ U.S. Navy’s Name For First Carrier UAV”, Sam LaGrone, July 15, 2016,

https://news.usni.org/2016/07/15/official-mq-25a-stingray-title-navys-first-carrier-uav