Boeing Wins MQ-25A Stingray Contract

The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is awarded a ceiling price $805,318,853 fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract to provide the design, development, fabrication, test, verification, certification, delivery, and support of four MQ-25A unmanned air vehicles, including integration into the carrier air wing to provide an initial operational capability to the Navy. The work will be performed in St. Louis, Missouri (45.5 percent); Indianapolis, Indiana (6.9 percent); Cedar Rapids, Iowa (3.1 percent); Quebec, Canada (3.1 percent); Palm Bay, Florida (2.3 percent); San Diego, California (1.5 percent); and various locations inside and outside the continental U.S. (37.6 percent), and is expected to be completed in August 2024. Fiscal 2018 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $79,050,820 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposals; three offers were received. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-18-C-1012).

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Stealth Saga #50

MQ-25 Stingray:

The USN has made it official that the new tanker drone will be the MQ-25a Stingray instead of CBARS.

Fifth Generation Fighters:

Why the 5th gen is so critical to aerial combat these days.

TFX:

Pakistan may be interested in buying the Turkish TFX fighter.

ATD-X/X-2/F-3:

Boeing and Lockheed are turning out to be rivals over the Japanese F-3 fighter program.

J-20:

More J-20s have started appearing on the flight line.

PAK-DA:

WiB argues, rightly, its highly unlikely the next Russian bomber will be a near space, hypersonic monster as described by the Russian media.

 The National Interest is also mocking the Russian media's pronouncements.

However, the Russians might actually be trying to get the Chinese to buy into the program.

PAK-FA:

Russia continues to claim to be testing sixth gen fighter components on the PAK-FA prototype 5th gen fighters.

WiB claims the PAK-FA is roughly comparable to the F-22.

B-21:

The USAF has not decided on how many B-21s it will need and will not do so until after the aircraft is done with development.  The reason being the global situation in the 2020s may be better  than now...or worse.

F-22:

What does the F-22 look like through a thermal imaging system?

F-35:

The USAF is comfortable with sending the F-35A to war by year's end.

The modifications to the F-35A so the USAF can declare IOC are complete.

The USMC sees the Small Diameter Bomb II as a priority upgrade to the F-35. 

The F-35 deployments to Britain as part of the airshows have been testing ALIS, the software for maintenance. 

Israel is considering buying the F-35B.

Elbit Systems is looking to provide training systems for the F-35.

Will the Turkish coup attempt cause a problem in the F-35 program?  However, Lockheed has confirmed the F-35s for Turkey are in the early stages of production.

The British airshows have been welcome PR for the F-35.

WiB still hates the F-35.

ATAC calls the F-35B very 'Raptor-ish' in how it fights air to air. 

Here are some photos of the F-35B at the Red Flag exercise.

Lockheed has stated the F-35 is underfunded and apparently its cash flow is hurt by the delays in the negotiations for the next batches of F-35s.

META:

British Aerospace has developed a laser sensor for determining air speed, doing away with the pivot tube.

Stealth Saga #49

RQ-170:

Neuron:

The French have completed the first round of naval testing of the Neuron UCAV.

Taranis:

High levels of assurance for the decision making will be necessary for automated capabilities on UCAVs.

FCAS:

At least two variants for the FCAS will be delivered, one to each partner country.

Increasingly, the FCAS is looking to be a stealthy drone.

MQ-25:

Surrogate tests are being run for the MQ-25's refueling pod.

PAK-FA:

India has restarted the negotiations with Russia for the PAK-FA derivative. 

Supposedly, going forward, India and Russia will each invest $4 billion in the FGFA PAK-FA derivative.

J-20:

Two more J-20s have joined the flight line this month.  This appears to be part of the LRIP for the J-20.  Side note is the new J-31 is supposedly bigger.

J-31:

Rumors are the new J-31 prototype is larger than the original.

H-20:

Supposedly, China's stealth bomber, the so-called H-20, is using data stolen from the US B-2 program.

Tornado Replacement:

The stealthy Tornado replacement is likely to be a drone herder.

Sixth Generation Fighters:

Russia claims it is testing 6th generation fighter tech on the PAK-FA.  Supposedly, these components are EW systems.  Or they might be high powered microwave weapons.

Russia also claims its 6th gen fighter will fly at Mach 4 to 5, have an EM gun (railgun), be able to fly to the edge of space and control drone swarms.   THey are missing the critical sparkles and rainbow coming out of the afterburner.

F-22:

The F-22 pilot with the most flight time has taken his last flight.

F-35:

How F-35 pilots clobber their A-4 opponents in wargames.

The F-35 is gaining momentum with buyers, but its dominance is far from certain or even likely.

The US Navy is fully committed to the F-35C.

The F-35C will be aboard the Washington for sea trials next month (August, 2016).

F-35Bs will participate in Red Flag for the first time.

F-35Bs have completed ski jump land trials.

Airbus is being tapped to provide cyber protection tech for the F-35.

Pratt & Whitney discussed the adaptive cycle upgrade for the F-35 engine. 

GE hopes to steal some of that engine production in the future and the USAF is open to the idea.

 Rolls Royce has a piece of the engine action, too.

Lockheed is working to cut costs for the F-35.

There's no system in place to strip Canadian firms of their work share of the F-35, at least not a standard system.

The JPO is at odds with the US Air Force over the ejection seat replacement.

The RAF is hinting it wants a mixed fleet of F-35s (As & Bs).

The Brits & USMC may pool weapons for the F-35B.

Israeli industry is waiting on the MOD to decide on what weapons will be selected for their F-35s.

The F-35 may be deployed to the Middle East, too.

META:

WiB says not to sweat the new Russian radar that can supposedly detect stealth aircraft.

Stealth Saga #43

MQ-XX/MQ-25 Stringray (CBARS):

The US Navy expects more progress this year on the tanker drone.

Taranis:

The test flight program of the European stealthy UCAV was outlined.

Neuron:

France has started letting its Navy test their Neuron UCAV demonstrator. The tests will include their aircraft carrier.

KF-X:

South Korea is set to select a foreign engine for its stealth fighter.

J-31:

Pakistan is interested in buying the J-31 to replace its F-16s.

B-21:

The US Air Force believes the B-21 will fill a gap on long range strike.

The US Air Force will announce the B-21's name in September at AFA.

The US allies will not participate in the B-21 development.

F-22:

Some argue NOT to revive F-22 production.

The F-22s have returned from Europe.

The intent of the visit was to bolster European visits

The F-22s have started sporting kill markings.

SecDef Carter is against the restart of the F-22 production line.

The Fesler brothers have taken over two different F-22 wings.

F-35:

Source.

The Thunderbirds & F-35s over Florida in pictures.  Do those pictures actually mean something?

The F-35 gets a bit of press.

Israel is testing weapons for its F-35I.  The F-35I will be unique.

The F-35 vs A-10 tests get rapped again.

The latest F-35 avionics software (3i) is declared ready.

The F-35 seems to be struggling still with its testing schedule.

Here's a day in the life of an F-35 test pilot.

USAF F-35s have started combat training.  Some of it virtual.

The F-35B has had its 1,000th vertical landing.

The 3rd Marine Air Wing is preparing to deploy the F-35B abroad, but is struggling with its legacy aircraft maintenance.

WiB goes off on the F-35 again, specifically that it is really three separate aircraft.

Denmark has selected the F-35 over the F/A-18E and Typhoon for an order of 27 aircraft.  This is likely to cause a political bun fight.  WiB is calling the decision stupid.  Boeing is challenging the selection.

Here are the pros and cons of the F-35A from the pilots and aircrews.

The F-35A has been conducting tail hook landing tests at Edwards AFB.

 Japan's fighter pilots will be getting to fly the F-35A at Luke AFB.

The Dutch F-35As are going back to the Netherlands.

Britain is funding the Spear 3 missile for its F-35s.

The Brits have also sent their tanker to test refueling F-35Bs. 

The Brits also highlight the problems of training with the F-35.

McCain is attempting to kill the F-35 joint program office.  SASC voted to do so.  Is this the first move to destroy the F-35 program?

Here's an update on the ALIS software for the F-35.

Meta:

Some are questioning whether stealth is right direction for the USAF's aircraft.