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bikerthai wrote:We are talking about tanking and or ISR. Wonder if some nation with only drogue tanking requirement would op for this instead of a KC-130 or other smaller tankers.
bt
kitplane01 wrote:Looking at some MQ-25 budget documents ....
Unit cost is about $150M per. Not counting development, nor support, just production. You could easily buy an actual F/A 18 for much less!
In addition, there are ~1.5B in "other support, which is not "initial spares" nor "RDT&E". Anyone have a guess what that might be.
The MQ-25 only makes sense as a development program, where we learn about large unmanned aircraft operating from a carrier. As an actual refueling platform, it costs a huge amount more than just buying F-18s. I'm not criticizing, development programs have a use.
https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Docu ... 9_Full.pdf
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-439.pdf
JayinKitsap wrote:Well Lockheed and GA were both crying that Boeing had seriously underbid the program, this is the first time that drones will be flying off of carriers, a serious leap in capability. LM's bid was reported to be far higher. With the 3 contracts landed in the fall of 19 - MQ-25, the helos, and the T-7A, LM indicated their pricing was several billion higher.
bikerthai wrote:JayinKitsap wrote:Well Lockheed and GA were both crying that Boeing had seriously underbid the program, this is the first time that drones will be flying off of carriers, a serious leap in capability. LM's bid was reported to be far higher. With the 3 contracts landed in the fall of 19 - MQ-25, the helos, and the T-7A, LM indicated their pricing was several billion higher.
Boeing "underbid" MQ-25 and T-7A because they were banking on the digital assembly process. From the press releases so far, they seem to be on the money.
The delay in the helo program seemed to be Covid related with supplier components and FAA certification.
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bikerthai wrote:OK, looking at the projected FRP frames, if I read it right, the cost is a little under 100 mil per frame fly away at 7 per year and a little over 100 mil per frame a 3 per year.
This is rather a rather low rate. Even the P-8 is running at over 12 per year at the height of its production.
If you get additional customers, and get the rate up, to one a month, you should be able to drive the price down further.
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bikerthai wrote:kitplane01 wrote:Looking at some MQ-25 budget documents ....
Unit cost is about $150M per.
Can you provide the quantity ordered? Some context would be nice.
Lot 1 pricing will always be more expensive as they have yet to come down the learning curve. First and second batch of full rate production would be more representative.
The other benefit would be the reduce operating cost of training a UAV pilot vs an F-18 pilot. An UAV pilot can monitor multiple aircraft vs an F-18 pilot.
bt
RJMAZ wrote:kitplane01 wrote:Looking at some MQ-25 budget documents ....
Unit cost is about $150M per. Not counting development, nor support, just production. You could easily buy an actual F/A 18 for much less!
The MQ-is a tanker and it can offload far more fuel than the Super Hornet.
The Navy's goal for the aircraft is to be able to deliver 15,000 lb (6,800 kg) of fuel total to 4 to 6 airplanes at a range of 500 nmi. The further away from the carrier you fly the bigger the advantage to the MQ-25 as it sips fuel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_MQ-25_Stingray
The Super Hornets combat radius with 4 bombs is only 390nm. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_ ... per_Hornet So the MQ-25 can top up multi Hornets back to full internal fuel capacity to allow them to fly out to 700nm from the carrier.
kitplane01 wrote:Where did you find the FRP? What date?
kitplane01 wrote:That's interesting! If a MQ-25 can carry 4x the fuel using half the engine power ... thats interesting.
Daetrin wrote:Even if an MQ-25 costs more than an F/A-18 to buy, if it's cheaper to operate not only on a sortie basis, but on a fuel offload basis, then you get a positive ROI that may pay back pretty quickly.
The low production rate may also be due to...
1. They want to iterate quickly and iron out things as they go vs. after they have lot of them.
2. If there are only 70 total, they may not really get economies of scale for a higher production rate, e.g. there may be other tooling constrains that limit production rate that they don't want to invest in given the number of aircraft produced.
Just speculating...
JayinKitsap wrote:Once the MQ-25's are operational it is quite likely there will be other variants for coms, sensors, radars etc. Don't need stealth if the radar is on, but that would allow the carrier's radar to be off, or other patrol aircraft not needing their's on.
SeamanBeaumont wrote:JayinKitsap wrote:Once the MQ-25's are operational it is quite likely there will be other variants for coms, sensors, radars etc. Don't need stealth if the radar is on, but that would allow the carrier's radar to be off, or other patrol aircraft not needing their's on.
You betting that the MQ-25 is the optimal platform to host those other systems? Why clutter the carrier with additional MQ-25s when you could have a separate unmanned platform half the size and twice as specialised. After the USN spends a couple of years working with this tech additional specialized platforms will be contracted, designed and built using digital blah blah.
SeamanBeaumont wrote:Daetrin wrote:Even if an MQ-25 costs more than an F/A-18 to buy, if it's cheaper to operate not only on a sortie basis, but on a fuel offload basis, then you get a positive ROI that may pay back pretty quickly.
The low production rate may also be due to...
1. They want to iterate quickly and iron out things as they go vs. after they have lot of them.
2. If there are only 70 total, they may not really get economies of scale for a higher production rate, e.g. there may be other tooling constrains that limit production rate that they don't want to invest in given the number of aircraft produced.
Just speculating...
When is comes to NAVAIR there is no ROI requiring payback.
The prod rate is low because the USN only needs 70 of them. At five per carrier air wing you don't need many and will be into the 2030s before all the carriers have been modified with the control stations. No doubt they could build 70 of them in two years but then the airframes sit around doing nothing until the carriers are ready.
SeamanBeaumont wrote:JayinKitsap wrote:Once the MQ-25's are operational it is quite likely there will be other variants for coms, sensors, radars etc. Don't need stealth if the radar is on, but that would allow the carrier's radar to be off, or other patrol aircraft not needing their's on.
You betting that the MQ-25 is the optimal platform to host those other systems? Why clutter the carrier with additional MQ-25s when you could have a separate unmanned platform half the size and twice as specialised. After the USN spends a couple of years working with this tech additional specialized platforms will be contracted, designed and built using digital blah blah.
kitplane01 wrote:SeamanBeaumont wrote:Daetrin wrote:Even if an MQ-25 costs more than an F/A-18 to buy, if it's cheaper to operate not only on a sortie basis, but on a fuel offload basis, then you get a positive ROI that may pay back pretty quickly.
The low production rate may also be due to...
1. They want to iterate quickly and iron out things as they go vs. after they have lot of them.
2. If there are only 70 total, they may not really get economies of scale for a higher production rate, e.g. there may be other tooling constrains that limit production rate that they don't want to invest in given the number of aircraft produced.
Just speculating...
When is comes to NAVAIR there is no ROI requiring payback.
The prod rate is low because the USN only needs 70 of them. At five per carrier air wing you don't need many and will be into the 2030s before all the carriers have been modified with the control stations. No doubt they could build 70 of them in two years but then the airframes sit around doing nothing until the carriers are ready.
There are financial constraints. Every MQ-25 bought means you don't buy an F-35. 70 MQ-25's costs as much as several Arleigh Burke class ships.
SeamanBeaumont wrote:You betting that the MQ-25 is the optimal platform to host those other systems? Why clutter the carrier with additional MQ-25s when you could have a separate unmanned platform half the size and twice as specialised.
RJMAZ wrote:SeamanBeaumont wrote:You betting that the MQ-25 is the optimal platform to host those other systems? Why clutter the carrier with additional MQ-25s when you could have a separate unmanned platform half the size and twice as specialised.
The MQ-25 frame is designed for maximum fuel capacity and to have the lowest fuel burn while staying inside the carrier weight limit. This provides the longest range or fuel offload possible from the carrier. These are the exact design goals that AWAC or recon platforms would want.
It would provide big cost savings by having all drone aircraft with 90+% commonality.
JayinKitsap wrote:SeamanBeaumont wrote:JayinKitsap wrote:Once the MQ-25's are operational it is quite likely there will be other variants for coms, sensors, radars etc. Don't need stealth if the radar is on, but that would allow the carrier's radar to be off, or other patrol aircraft not needing their's on.
You betting that the MQ-25 is the optimal platform to host those other systems? Why clutter the carrier with additional MQ-25s when you could have a separate unmanned platform half the size and twice as specialised. After the USN spends a couple of years working with this tech additional specialized platforms will be contracted, designed and built using digital blah blah.
Well to be the most effective, it should be 300-400 mile radius from the carrier, so it needs to be airborne 8-10 hours. Further, if in a dual role of tanker & surveillance there would be added tanker assets to assist with returning planes. Most airborne surveillance planes are either RJ's or bigger anyway.
RJMAZ wrote:SeamanBeaumont wrote:You betting that the MQ-25 is the optimal platform to host those other systems? Why clutter the carrier with additional MQ-25s when you could have a separate unmanned platform half the size and twice as specialised.
The MQ-25 frame is designed for maximum fuel capacity and to have the lowest fuel burn while staying inside the carrier weight limit.
SeamanBeaumont wrote:kitplane01 wrote:SeamanBeaumont wrote:When is comes to NAVAIR there is no ROI requiring payback.
The prod rate is low because the USN only needs 70 of them. At five per carrier air wing you don't need many and will be into the 2030s before all the carriers have been modified with the control stations. No doubt they could build 70 of them in two years but then the airframes sit around doing nothing until the carriers are ready.
There are financial constraints. Every MQ-25 bought means you don't buy an F-35. 70 MQ-25's costs as much as several Arleigh Burke class ships.
None of that is ROI requiring payback. Militaries will pay overs for capability if it provides an operational edge. NAVAIR or big USN could buy 30 different planes/ships/tomatoes every year and never have to pay back the investment. There are financial constraints but doesn't stop Congress from making stupid financial decisions like keeping Ticos around.
kitplane01 wrote:RJMAZ wrote:The MQ-25 frame is designed for maximum fuel capacity and to have the lowest fuel burn while staying inside the carrier weight limit.
How do you know this? I didn't think Boeing had released any weights (gross, empty, etc) for the MQ-25.
RJMAZ wrote:kitplane01 wrote:RJMAZ wrote:The MQ-25 frame is designed for maximum fuel capacity and to have the lowest fuel burn while staying inside the carrier weight limit.
How do you know this? I didn't think Boeing had released any weights (gross, empty, etc) for the MQ-25.
How could you even dispute what I said? The alternative would be that the Navy wants to minimise fuel capacity, use a fuel guzzling engine and to exceed the carrier weight limit so it has to operate from land bases.
JayinKitsap wrote:
bikerthai wrote:Wiki has the wing span and height. But that is probably fot the pre-production frames.
They will not have final weights until they finish the first production frames completed and have weight on wheels.
The internal components would have been sized for full operation life time as opposed to test life only as well as the additional systems for full payload capabilities.
Those numbers will probably not be available until the first production frame is officially introduced or have gone through initial flight envelope testing.
bt
kitplane01 wrote:Heck I'm sure they had a very good weight/speed/etc estimate during the design stage.
JayinKitsap wrote:I suspect the Navy is treating the specs as classified for now. I am sure they had a ton of data back at the RFP stage. No reason for Boeing or the Navy to divulge anything beyond the RFP
Steady Funding For MQ-25
The service’s FY23 budget marks the first year buying fully-fledged MQ-25A Stingrays. The J-books’ projections show a steady stream of funding to purchase four aircraft a year, starting in FY23 and running through FY27.
LTEN11 wrote:bikerthai wrote:Another check mark.
https://news.usni.org/2021/08/19/boeing ... ed-hawkeye“During the six-hour flight, Navy E-2D pilots from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Zero (VX) 20 approached T1, performed formation evaluations, wake surveys, drogue tracking and plugs with the MQ-25 test asset at 220 knots calibrated airspeed (KCAS) and 10,000 feet,” according to a release from Naval Air Systems Command.
bt
Watching the video, I wasn't aware of just how big the MQ-25 is, it is an substantial aircraft.
JuggernautAlpha wrote:If the intake is at the top with a turbine on it, won't it make the top side RCS incredibly high.
JuggernautAlpha wrote:Do we have photos of the top. If the intake is at the top with a turbine on it, won't it make the top side RCS incredibly high. If it doesn't have a turbine, wouldn't the engine strugle ingesting air when the angle of attack rises (like when landing)
ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:JuggernautAlpha wrote:Do we have photos of the top. If the intake is at the top with a turbine on it, won't it make the top side RCS incredibly high. If it doesn't have a turbine, wouldn't the engine strugle ingesting air when the angle of attack rises (like when landing)
Oddly enough it isn't intended to be viewed from directly above by opponents. So yes, there's an increase of RCS from that angle. But a dramatic decrease and simplification from all the angles likely to have opponents.
As for high AoA. Yeah, it'll make things a bit more fiddly in the design. But it's hardly an impossible challenge. Remember this design isn't aimed at sudden agility movement. But rather a stealthy truck to haul stuff about. So taking a hit on sudden high AoA movement is an acceptable tradeoff to reduce design and sustainment costs elsewhere.
ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:
Oddly enough it isn't intended to be viewed from directly above by opponents. So yes, there's an increase of RCS from that angle.