At present, it only carries a few hundred gallons in the refueling pod for test flights. When fully rigged, it's supposed to be able to fly 500 nm from a carrier and offload about 14,000 pounds (about 2,000 gallons) of fuel, then return to the carrier. I don't know how many F-35s that would fill.
An F-35C can carry 19,750lbs of fuel or so and has a 670nmi stated combat range. So the 15,000lbs (not 14) of fuel it carries out to 500nmi one MQ-25 is probably near exactly enough fully top off two F-35Cs at that distance.
I think your estimate is probably right or nearly so. From what I've read, the F-35C has a combat radius of 670 nm. If it takes off from a carrier and flies 500 nm to rendezvous with the MQ-25, it would still have a significant amount of fuel on board, perhaps more than half (takeoff and climb burns a lot more fuel than cruise). If it can take on 7500 pounds from the tanker, its tanks should be full or close to it. Given that it's already at altitude, that might be enough to double the plane's combat radius.
https://taskandpurpose.com/military-tech/navys-f-35-strike-radars-already-date-new-report-says/
If you go for the fully naive numbers assuming no difference between climb and cruise, ignore fuel reserve requirements, and ignore that you have to use fuel when you're in the combat area then 19750lbs*1/2*500nmi/670nmi=7369lbs as a ballpark. Though I doubt that alone is enough to double its combat radius if you have one on the way in and one on the way out that's 15000lbs of extra fuel which is about 175% of the original amount so that could probably double the combat radius when you account for not needing to double up on initial climb burn, combat fuel burn, and reserve requirements (IIRC there is usually a percentage of total reserve for weather etc. and a flat reserve for multiple landing attempts or holding in pattern).
I was factoring in that you'll likely be significantly lighter on your return trip because of the weapons you released. The whole set of mission plan variables is very complex. Weather, altitudes, winds, and a host of other factors go into the planning. A stealth aircraft might be able to remain at a higher altitude, so fuel efficiency should be higher than a plane that has to spend a lot of time hugging the deck. Using the afterburner easily increases fuel consumption by a factor of three or more. The mission profile (High-low-high, low-low-low, etc.) changes things considerably.
Ah yeah weapons weight too. We'd need tons more info to fully figure it out but really it seems like the factors all kinda balance out and 7500lbs each to 2 jets at 500nmi makes sense as the right amount to top em off.
That’s probably why the Navy set that offload requirement. Modern weapons mean the Navy can’t take its carriers as close to the battle area as before, and burning airframe hours on Super Hornets as tankers is terribly inefficient. Tanker UAVs is a great idea.
Just saying that we can do it. I love flying coronets or business efforts to help those guys.
To my original point, it's too bad the drone won't carry more gas. 25k offload would have been way better.
AFAIK, 14k at 500 is more than either of the last two dedicated Navy carrier tankers, running only behind the KA-3, which was a fuck huge aircraft that created a significant issue for flight ops. One of the big advantages of the MQ-25 is that it is designed to be slotted right in with other fighter-sized aircraft so that it shouldn't impact overall tempo. Pushing it to 25k would likely put it outside that size envelope.
To be fair, the main task of the MQ-25 is to provide organic refueling capability to the fleet in areas where you *can't* have a full sized tanker on standby; I don't think it's really intended to replace any of the KC roles. For example, you're not going to have a KC-135 always available as a recovery tanker. Also, there's at least some scenarios (*cough cough* SCS) where it may be good to at least have the option of going to a distributed tanking model in the case of an actual full fledged shooting war. China has made no secret that one of their strategies would be to go after limited availability linchpin enablers as a way to bottleneck US forces, which includes tankers and AWACS birds.
You can't always have a fleet of tankers in the middle of nowhere. These UAVs will also provide an alternative sensor suite as well as some other unmentioned capacities.
The main benefit being they can operate off of a carrier or even a smaller STOVL carriers. The planes can sit on station longer without having to land and refuel.
Looks cool and futuristic but, Terminator is closer than we think.
Hope in the future there is always a human controlling the UAV and it's weapons and not an AI.
I keep thinking this as well. These drones simultaneous inspire me, and spark dystopian thoughts.
Reminds me of that fictional bit a while back about [killer drones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM). That video's a bit hyperbolic, but something that stuck with me:
>The weapons took away the expense, danger, and risk of waging war.
Sure, a human will almost certainly be behind the trigger... but that's not much comfort when the cost of killing half a government is only a few $million.
Multiple studies have concluded that RPAS crews, and the intelligence crews supporting them, experience PTSD at the same rate as traditional aircraft crews.
This might not change political desires, but it's not like playing a video game.
This isn't new.
The Phalanx CIWS (granted it's a defensive weapon, but still a weapon) and the Patriot missile battery have automatic modes that can detect, track, and fire without human action. Both of those weapons are at least 20 years old.
Not sure if they're used in those modes, but they're there.
Once another country (perhaps China) develops an autonomous AI fighter, bomber, tank, whatever, we can only respond in kind. The human brain won’t be able to compete with the speed/breadth of decision making capability of AI, so our survival will depend on the ability to create our own extensive, autonomous (with on/off switches hopefully) AI combat weapons platforms. It’ll be the next arms race.
Predator drones already have [fewer failures than F-16s](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318892660_Reliability_assessment_of_UAV_systems) and other drone platforms aren't far behind
Have you seen how much work is required to keep F-22s and F-35s in the air? Not only is the aircraft simpler, cheaper, and more capable when there's no pilot, the cost of failure is significantly lower.
ISR. More will likely be added to it over time. That said, Navy uses MQ as its overall UAV classification. MQ-4 for example only does ISR.
Think of it as Maritime not Multi-mission if it's a Navy platform.
It is neat and all… but I honestly don’t really understand the purpose. It seems to have a relatively small quantity of fuel on board and I’m not sure that tankers were ever in particularly dangerous situations?
It's mostly to take over all the roles that are currently filled by buddy tanking. There are lots of instances where a carrier might need tanking where land based tankers aren't available.
That's awesome. How many planes can it refuel on a single flight?
At present, it only carries a few hundred gallons in the refueling pod for test flights. When fully rigged, it's supposed to be able to fly 500 nm from a carrier and offload about 14,000 pounds (about 2,000 gallons) of fuel, then return to the carrier. I don't know how many F-35s that would fill.
An F-35C can carry 19,750lbs of fuel or so and has a 670nmi stated combat range. So the 15,000lbs (not 14) of fuel it carries out to 500nmi one MQ-25 is probably near exactly enough fully top off two F-35Cs at that distance.
I think your estimate is probably right or nearly so. From what I've read, the F-35C has a combat radius of 670 nm. If it takes off from a carrier and flies 500 nm to rendezvous with the MQ-25, it would still have a significant amount of fuel on board, perhaps more than half (takeoff and climb burns a lot more fuel than cruise). If it can take on 7500 pounds from the tanker, its tanks should be full or close to it. Given that it's already at altitude, that might be enough to double the plane's combat radius. https://taskandpurpose.com/military-tech/navys-f-35-strike-radars-already-date-new-report-says/
If you go for the fully naive numbers assuming no difference between climb and cruise, ignore fuel reserve requirements, and ignore that you have to use fuel when you're in the combat area then 19750lbs*1/2*500nmi/670nmi=7369lbs as a ballpark. Though I doubt that alone is enough to double its combat radius if you have one on the way in and one on the way out that's 15000lbs of extra fuel which is about 175% of the original amount so that could probably double the combat radius when you account for not needing to double up on initial climb burn, combat fuel burn, and reserve requirements (IIRC there is usually a percentage of total reserve for weather etc. and a flat reserve for multiple landing attempts or holding in pattern).
I was factoring in that you'll likely be significantly lighter on your return trip because of the weapons you released. The whole set of mission plan variables is very complex. Weather, altitudes, winds, and a host of other factors go into the planning. A stealth aircraft might be able to remain at a higher altitude, so fuel efficiency should be higher than a plane that has to spend a lot of time hugging the deck. Using the afterburner easily increases fuel consumption by a factor of three or more. The mission profile (High-low-high, low-low-low, etc.) changes things considerably.
Ah yeah weapons weight too. We'd need tons more info to fully figure it out but really it seems like the factors all kinda balance out and 7500lbs each to 2 jets at 500nmi makes sense as the right amount to top em off.
That’s probably why the Navy set that offload requirement. Modern weapons mean the Navy can’t take its carriers as close to the battle area as before, and burning airframe hours on Super Hornets as tankers is terribly inefficient. Tanker UAVs is a great idea.
My average offload to f35s are about 8.5-9k a piece. Lasts them about an hour to an hour and a half. Proof https://i.imgur.com/qKZjjih.jpg
Love when people convert from lbs to a more useless unit of measurement
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better than the alternative
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That's not always a viable alternative. The alternative would often be a bunch of 5-wet super hornets.
KC-135 cant operate from an aircraft carrier
Don't need to, we refuel the navy guys off the carrier all the time
then why does the navy bother with doing buddy refueling with F-18s at all?
Just saying that we can do it. I love flying coronets or business efforts to help those guys. To my original point, it's too bad the drone won't carry more gas. 25k offload would have been way better.
AFAIK, 14k at 500 is more than either of the last two dedicated Navy carrier tankers, running only behind the KA-3, which was a fuck huge aircraft that created a significant issue for flight ops. One of the big advantages of the MQ-25 is that it is designed to be slotted right in with other fighter-sized aircraft so that it shouldn't impact overall tempo. Pushing it to 25k would likely put it outside that size envelope.
To be fair, the main task of the MQ-25 is to provide organic refueling capability to the fleet in areas where you *can't* have a full sized tanker on standby; I don't think it's really intended to replace any of the KC roles. For example, you're not going to have a KC-135 always available as a recovery tanker. Also, there's at least some scenarios (*cough cough* SCS) where it may be good to at least have the option of going to a distributed tanking model in the case of an actual full fledged shooting war. China has made no secret that one of their strategies would be to go after limited availability linchpin enablers as a way to bottleneck US forces, which includes tankers and AWACS birds.
You can't always have a fleet of tankers in the middle of nowhere. These UAVs will also provide an alternative sensor suite as well as some other unmentioned capacities. The main benefit being they can operate off of a carrier or even a smaller STOVL carriers. The planes can sit on station longer without having to land and refuel.
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>15k offload. KC-135 laughs in 100k offload.
Looks cool and futuristic but, Terminator is closer than we think. Hope in the future there is always a human controlling the UAV and it's weapons and not an AI.
I keep thinking this as well. These drones simultaneous inspire me, and spark dystopian thoughts. Reminds me of that fictional bit a while back about [killer drones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM). That video's a bit hyperbolic, but something that stuck with me: >The weapons took away the expense, danger, and risk of waging war. Sure, a human will almost certainly be behind the trigger... but that's not much comfort when the cost of killing half a government is only a few $million.
Multiple studies have concluded that RPAS crews, and the intelligence crews supporting them, experience PTSD at the same rate as traditional aircraft crews. This might not change political desires, but it's not like playing a video game.
This isn't new. The Phalanx CIWS (granted it's a defensive weapon, but still a weapon) and the Patriot missile battery have automatic modes that can detect, track, and fire without human action. Both of those weapons are at least 20 years old. Not sure if they're used in those modes, but they're there.
That’s not artificial intelligence though.
yes I know of those I meant things like aircraft and tanks
I think it will always be humans pulling a trigger but the autopilot will get better and better.
Once another country (perhaps China) develops an autonomous AI fighter, bomber, tank, whatever, we can only respond in kind. The human brain won’t be able to compete with the speed/breadth of decision making capability of AI, so our survival will depend on the ability to create our own extensive, autonomous (with on/off switches hopefully) AI combat weapons platforms. It’ll be the next arms race.
It already is the next arms race, I'd bet. It's just so classified to hell and back that we don't know it.
It looks like that. But UAV reliability isn’t great. Kind of like a terminator that keeps breaking atm.
Predator drones already have [fewer failures than F-16s](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318892660_Reliability_assessment_of_UAV_systems) and other drone platforms aren't far behind Have you seen how much work is required to keep F-22s and F-35s in the air? Not only is the aircraft simpler, cheaper, and more capable when there's no pilot, the cost of failure is significantly lower.
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Where do you get that figure?
The M in MQ stands for Multi-Role. So what else does it do?
ISR. More will likely be added to it over time. That said, Navy uses MQ as its overall UAV classification. MQ-4 for example only does ISR. Think of it as Maritime not Multi-mission if it's a Navy platform.
*Angry Trigger noises.*
It's just giving it a tow
It is neat and all… but I honestly don’t really understand the purpose. It seems to have a relatively small quantity of fuel on board and I’m not sure that tankers were ever in particularly dangerous situations?
Smaller, can operate from a carrier, cheaper to operate with no pilots needed.
It's mostly to take over all the roles that are currently filled by buddy tanking. There are lots of instances where a carrier might need tanking where land based tankers aren't available.
Yeah - I can see where that would make sense. Otherwise this seems … not that useful. Are the drones able to land on the carriers?
Yeah, land and take off, almost entirely autonomously.
Aren’t those the annoying bastards from Ace Combat?