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Stingray set for carrier test

3rd August 2021 - 12:20 GMT | by David Isby in Maryland

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The MQ-25 Stingray performed the first-ever UAV refuelling of a manned aircraft in June 2021. (Photo: Boeing)

If it stays on track for IOC in 2025, the Stingray unmanned refuelling aircraft will have gone from contract to carrier in under seven years.

The MQ-25A Stingray unmanned tanker aircraft for the USN is moving towards IOC in 2025, CAPT Chad Reed, PMA-268 programme manager at Naval Air Systems Command, said on 2 August during a briefing at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space conference.

Reed said that the high-priority programme reflects the ‘vital importance’ of fielding Stingray ‘as soon as possible as an accelerated acquisition programme’.

If the IOC schedule holds, it would mean that the Stingray programme goes ‘from contract to carrier’ in six and a half years, he added.

Boeing is building seven MQ-25A UAVs (four for engineering development and three for system

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