MQ-25 Stingray: A Carrier Based Refueling Drone

[Elderberry]

Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

One problem the Navy has in a potential fight with China is that its carrier strike groups would need to be dangerously close to the Chinese mainland to launch strike aircraft close enough for them to return. The MQ-25 Stingray is designed to solve that problem.

•  “This is the Boeing MQ-25 Stingray. It is the world’s first operational, carrier-based unmanned aircraft.”

•  “Despite looking like a futuristic stealth bomber, its job isn’t to bomb or dog fight. Its job is a bit boring. It’s a flying gas station.”

•  “In the Pacific theater, the distances between safe bases and potential combat zones are measured in thousands of kilometers. The Pacific Ocean is really big. Yet, modern carrier fighters like the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the F-35C actually have shorter combat radiuses than the old Cold War workhorses like the A-6 Intruder.”
 
•  “To fix this, the Navy has been forced to use its own fighters as improvised tankers. Currently, somewhere between 20 and 30% of all Super Hornet sorties are just refueling missions. They hang extra fuel tanks on the wings and fly out just to top off their friends. This is kind of like buying a fleet of high-end Ferraris and then using a third of them to deliver Uber Eats. It works, yes, but it is an incredibly stupid use of money and airframe life.”

•  “The MQ-25 is designed to stop that waste by spending billions of dollars. It can launch from the carrier and deliver between 14,000 and 16,000 lb of fuel to other aircraft 500 nautical miles away. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly 2,400 gallons. That’s enough gas to fill up about 160 family cars.”

•  “If you’re a carrier-based drone with that kind of range and internal volume, you don’t have to fill it with gas. You could fill it with radar arrays. You could fill it with sensor packages or one day you could indeed fill it with stealthy anti-ship missiles.”

•  The Intruder could “strike targets hundreds of miles away and loiter for hours, keeping the aircraft carrier itself well out of harm’s way. But those aircraft are gone. They were retired years ago, leaving the modern air carrier deck dominated by the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the F-35C. Now, these are fantastic high-tech multiroll fighters. But compared to their ancestors, they’ve got short legs. Their unrefueled combat radius is significantly tighter.”

More: https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=69887


https://youtu.be/txECiWCMBBk

[BobfromWB]

Do NOT trust YT videos to be real or accurate as most are fakes.


MQ-25 is NOT operational yet:

MQ-25 Stingray Has Begun Taxi Tests (Updated)
Despite a push to get to first flight in 2025, the Navy is now hoping to see its MQ-25 aerial refueling drone fly in the coming months.
Joseph Trevithick, Published Jan 30, 2026

Excerpt:

The initial production representative MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone for the U.S. Navy has completed its first low-speed taxi test. The service has said it is now targeting a first flight for the uncrewed aircraft early this year, after missing a self-imposed deadline to reach that milestone before the end of 2025.
--

Boeing and the Navy have now confirmed to TWZ that the first taxi test occurred yesterday.

“The first U.S. Navy MQ-25A Stingray is in the final stages of ground testing and completed its first taxi test yesterday,” a company spokesperson told us in a statement. “Boeing and the Navy will now conduct additional taxi tests and then complete deliberate systems level testing and review and approve the final airworthiness artifacts needed for a flight clearance. Once that’s complete and we have a suitable weather window, the aircraft will fly.”

“The [MQ-25] aircraft is now in the final stages of ground testing and successfully completed its first low-speed taxi test [on] January 29,” Navy Rear Adm. Tony Rossi, Program Executive Officer for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons (PEO U&W), also told TWZ in a statement. “The team is finalizing systems testing and flight clearance, with the first flight planned once certification is complete and weather permits.”

“The MQ-25A Navy–Boeing team continues to make progress toward first flight,”


https://www.twz.com/air/mq-25-stingray-has-begun-taxi-tests

[PeteS in CA]

Using carrier-based aircraft as tankers is not that recent. KA-6Ds were deployed in the 1970s, to replace the older KA-3Bs.

[BobfromWB]

Using carrier-based aircraft as tankers is not that recent. KA-6Ds were deployed in the 1970s, to replace the older KA-3Bs.

They were manned planes - this is a drone, so that is new, if they get it working. I believe the Navy cancelled it once, but has now brought it back.

[Smokin Joe]

They were manned planes - this is a drone, so that is new, if they get it working. I believe the Navy cancelled it once, but has now brought it back.

Well, once they get it working, teach it to refuel drones. Then long reach with less personnel risk will become a reality (without going ballistic, literally).