{"id":330512,"date":"2026-05-07T04:14:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=330512"},"modified":"2026-05-07T04:14:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:44:57","slug":"first-flight-of-us-drone-which-might-refuel-fighter-jets-mid-air-news-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/first-flight-of-us-drone-which-might-refuel-fighter-jets-mid-air-news-us\/","title":{"rendered":"First flight of US drone which might refuel fighter jets mid-air | News US"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The US has shown off the primary flight of a robot aircraft which could make jet fighter missions more deadly.<\/p>\n

The autonomous MQ-25A Stingray will give you the chance to refuel warplanes in mid-flight, allowing for longer missions.<\/p>\n

Developers Boeing and the US Navy say they’ve now accomplished the primary two-hour test flight of an operational model.<\/p>\n

Through the flight, the unmanned aircraft successfully demonstrated its ability to autonomously taxi, take off, fly, land and reply to commands from the Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System MD-5 Ground Control Station.<\/p>\n

The MQ-25A Stingray can be used mainly as a carrier-based aerial refuelling drone for the US Navy.<\/p>\n

It is going to help refuel fighter jets at sea, extend the range of the carrier air wing and unlock F\/A-18 Super Hornets to give attention to strike missions.<\/p>\n

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The unmanned drone will work with the US Navy (Picture: SWNS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It might also be used for surveillance and other support roles from an aircraft carrier.<\/p>\n

An announcement from Boeing said: \u2018The milestone advances the Stingray closer to aircraft carrier operations and marks the start of a brand new era in naval aviation.\u2019<\/p>\n

Dan Gillian, Vice President and General Manager of Boeing Air Dominance, said: \u2018Today\u2019s successful flight builds on years of learning from our MQ-25A T1 prototype and represents a serious maturation of this system.<\/p>\n

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FA Super Hornet fighter jets will give you the chance to be refuelled mid-air (Picture: AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018The MQ-25A is essentially the most complex autonomous system ever developed for the carrier environment, and this historic achievement advances us closer to securely integrating the Stingray into the carrier air wing.\u2019<\/p>\n

The aircraft is the primary of 4 Engineering Development Model aircraft that can be delivered to the Navy under the unique $805m Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract.<\/p>\n

Boeing and the Navy will conduct additional test flights out of MidAmerica St. Louis Airport to further validate the aircraft\u2019s flight controls and capabilities before transitioning to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, to organize for carrier qualifications.<\/p>\n

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The drone will give you the chance to refuel fighter jets mid-air (Picture: SWNS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The US has been ramping up its use of more advanced military weapons in recent combat operations, including 5,000-pound penetrator bombs, which have been dropped along Iran\u2019s coastline.<\/p>\n

The munitions, named by a\u00a0government\u00a0official as GBU-72 Advanced 5k Penetrator bombs, were first released in 2021.<\/p>\n

The US released them over Iran in hopes of reaching \u2018hardened, deeply buried goal challenges\u2019 \u2013 namely, missile silos along the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

The Air Force said of the bombs: \u2018The weapon design and its projected effectiveness were developed using advanced modelling and simulation techniques and processes before the primary warhead was forged.<\/p>\n

\u2018It is a repeatable process for all future direct attack weapons. Lethality is anticipated to be substantially higher in comparison with similar legacy weapons just like the GBU-28, based on James Culliton, GBU-72 program manager.\u2019<\/p>\n

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to an online browser that supports HTML5 video The US has shown off the primary flight of a robot aircraft which could make jet fighter missions more deadly. The autonomous MQ-25A Stingray will give you the chance to refuel warplanes in mid-flight, allowing for longer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":330513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[13599,2760,2505,10045,23065,395,51423],"class_list":["post-330512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-drone","tag-fighter","tag-flight","tag-jets","tag-midair","tag-news","tag-refuel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330512"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330515,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330512\/revisions\/330515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}