US Navy Muling Using UCLASS as a Tanker

he U.S. Navy is considering using its forthcoming Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft as an aerial refueling tanker to free up its fleet of Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets for more strike missions, several sources told USNI News.

“It’s definitely of interest,” one industry official said.
“On a typical air operations day, they might have to dedicate up to five Hornets to do tanking.”

Most of those tanker sorties are for “recovery tanking” around the carrier.

According to industry sources and retired service officials, up to 20 percent of a carrier air wing’s Super Hornet sorties are consumed by the tanker mission.

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But industry sources are not convinced. By the mid-2020s, there probably will not be enough UCLASS air vehicles in the Navy arsenal to perform the aerial refueling mission especially as the Super Hornet airframe start to wear out, the industry sources said.

In that case the Navy will have to come up with an alternative.

“They may be forced to have a dedicated tanker on the deck,” an industry source said.
“This idea that UCLASS is somehow going to save Super Hornets from doing tanking—I’m not seeing how that’s really going to work when you look at the lifespan of the Super Hornets and when UCLASS is going to be in the fleet.”

That’s especially true if a carrier would only carry six UCLASS air vehicles—which would have to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions in addition to the tanker mission.

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