Boeing Reveals Unmanned Refueling Drone

DooKey

DooKey

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Back in October, the Navy released a request for proposal for an autonomous refueling drone that can be used to refuel many of it's carrier based aircraft. Boeing intends to compete for this contract and has revealed the prototype that will compete for the new drone. This new drone can launch and land on carriers and meet up with fighter aircraft and refuel them autonomously. With this kind of drone being developed is it really that long before manned fighter aircraft go the way of the dodo?

The MQ-25 Stringray aerial tanker will be able to deliver about 15,000 pounds of fuel 500 nautical miles out from an aircraft carrier. That should give fighters an additional 300 to 400 miles of flight range over what they have now.
 
I guess as a mini-tanker it's a good fit. If you don't have to accomodate a pilot, all that space and weight of cockpit, etc is just more fuel it can carry.

I think it will be a long time before we see unmanned strike fighters.... a super hornet is not a slow/cheap (by fighter standards) drone, LOL
 
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Burticus said:
I think it will be a long time before we see unmanned strike fighters.... a super hornet is not a slow/cheap (by fighter standards) drone, LOL
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I think so too, but it will absolutely get there. There's no question about it. I suspect, what likely would happen to help prevent any mistakes is that the fighter drone would fly to an area, then when it's in suspected hot range zone, sensor sweep the area finding probable targets for bunker based pilots to fire on. Imagine how completely deadly fighters would be without the G force restrictions. Terminator style. Eventually, I think tanks could get there too.
 
Burticus said:
I guess as a mini-tanker it's a good fit. If you don't have to accomodate a pilot, all that space and weight of cockpit, etc is just more fuel it can carry.

I think it will be a long time before we see unmanned strike fighters.... a super hornet is not a slow/cheap (by fighter standards) drone, LOL
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Unmanned primary is not possible due to EW concerns. You’ll always need manned aircraft for near-peer/peer threats where your comms/electronics are certain to be fucked with.

For uncontested air/cyber space? Sure.
 
Mchart said:
Unmanned primary is not possible due to EW concerns. You’ll always need manned aircraft for near-peer/peer threats where your comms/electronics are certain to be fucked with.

For uncontested air/cyber space? Sure.
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Not necessarily. You could have good AI and have preprogramed targets you don't need a remote pilot controlling it to function. I would assume that the targets for this would be fixed to remove the extra complexity for hitting moving targets.
 
Shotglass01 said:
I think so too, but it will absolutely get there. There's no question about it. I suspect, what likely would happen to help prevent any mistakes is that the fighter drone would fly to an area, then when it's in suspected hot range zone, sensor sweep the area finding probable targets for bunker based pilots to fire on. Imagine how completely deadly fighters would be without the G force restrictions. Terminator style. Eventually, I think tanks could get there too.
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Check out the movie Stealth. It's kinda stupid, but touches on these topics.

Rob94hawk said:
No Skynet references? Guys, I’m so disappointed. :(
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PFFT, Skynet is so 1997.
 
Shotglass01 said:
Imagine how completely deadly fighters would be without the G force restrictions. Terminator style.
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I think that doing loops around a ten cent piece is overrated. Sensors, range, speed, low detectability and communications are where it's at.

Besides which, the fighters themselves have a breaking point (or at least an unsafe point) not that much greater than a human can stand.
 
[21CW]killerofall said:
Not necessarily. You could have good AI and have preprogramed targets you don't need a remote pilot controlling it to function. I would assume that the targets for this would be fixed to remove the extra complexity for hitting moving targets.
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While this is possible, it unfortunately can’t be relied upon due to how we do targeting/authorities . You need a human at the trigger.

If we face an existential crisis - sure.
 
Mchart said:
While this is possible, it unfortunately can’t be relied upon due to how we do targeting/authorities . You need a human at the trigger.

If we face an existential crisis - sure.
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In that case, you would consider the moment of giving the orders to the plane as "pulling the trigger." Just like when you fire an ICBM, just instead of firing a rocket, you are firing a plane.
 
Disco_Stu_04 said:
Great for those who come back below bingo or who are delayed landing
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Navy ops usually include a refueling on the way TO the target. Better for a whole lot of reasons. Typically, several aircraft become buddy tankers and lose their stores stations to fuel tanks for other guys. Having a dedicated drone tanker will allow the strike package to carry more ordnance.

The refuel on the return is predicated on a lot of what ifs. Typically, you have to ask, "what do I do if I can't get the gas?" So, you don't count on that gas to get you back to the carrier.

Top off on the way downtown. Makes your visit that much more worthwhile.

Oh, and for "pilot in the bunker", that may work in a permissive environment, like we have in Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria. But to assume that comms/video/datalink will be able to work in a near-peer adversarial conflict is hoping for too much.
 
[21CW]killerofall said:
In that case, you would consider the moment of giving the orders to the plane as "pulling the trigger." Just like when you fire an ICBM, just instead of firing a rocket, you are firing a plane.
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Guided missiles are a little bit different situation as they are typical achieving effects against very specific targets by geographic location. What you are talking about with the UAV is... different. It's a workable model, but ultimately it wouldn't be very effective against a near-peer where again disruption of comms, and highly maneuverable targets w/ changing profiles would just break current AI.

It would again work in an uncontested environment, but if the environment is uncontested you have comms and don't need the AI at that point anyways.

So this is why I say unless we are in threat of losing a major war and having our country collapse we'll generally never get the broad authorities that would allow for an AI-auto targeting drone to operate. (And i'd hope we'd never need to resort to this!) The same type of situation where we'd be using nukes anyways and precision targeting/authorities is no longer an issue.
 
Mchart said:
Guided missiles are a little bit different situation as they are typical achieving effects against very specific targets by geographic location. What you are talking about with the UAV is... different. It's a workable model, but ultimately it wouldn't be very effective against a near-peer where again disruption of comms, and highly maneuverable targets w/ changing profiles would just break current AI.

It would again work in an uncontested environment, but if the environment is uncontested you have comms and don't need the AI at that point anyways.

So this is why I say unless we are in threat of losing a major war and having our country collapse we'll generally never get the broad authorities that would allow for an AI-auto targeting drone to operate. (And i'd hope we'd never need to resort to this!) The same type of situation where we'd be using nukes anyways and precision targeting/authorities is no longer an issue.
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I wasn't talking about an auto-targeting drone. I was specifically talking about a drone that would hit pre-approved static targets. The AI would be for just keeping itself alive to the target, hitting the target, and getting back to base, not picking its own targets.
 
Nallexi said:
I think that doing loops around a ten cent piece is overrated. Sensors, range, speed, low detectability and communications are where it's at.

Besides which, the fighters themselves have a breaking point (or at least an unsafe point) not that much greater than a human can stand.
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Don't get me wrong, it'll still take quite a while. But I do believe it'll happen. It's just time now.
 
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