MQ-25 Stingray

The U.S. Navy's first carrier-based unmanned aircraft—a dedicated aerial refueling tanker meant to relieve Super Hornets of the buddy-tanking burden and extend the strike range of the carrier air wing in contested environments.

Overview

The MQ-25A Stingray is a fixed-wing, autonomous unmanned aerial refueling tanker developed by Boeing for the U.S. Navy. It is purpose-built to operate from aircraft carriers, using probe-and-drogue refueling pods already in fleet service to offload fuel to F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, F-35Cs, and E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes at a planned 500 nautical miles from the carrier. As the first dedicated unmanned tanker in the Navy’s inventory, it aims to reclaim strike-fighter sorties currently consumed by crewed buddy-tanking, a capability gap that has grown quantifiably urgent as the Navy designs operations in the Pacific. The Stingray also carries a secondary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) mission, though its tanker role dominates the program of record.

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