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Boeing Wins Bid To Build the Navy's Carrier-Launched Tanker Drone (arstechnica.com)
Boeing has been awarded an $805 million contract by the U.S. Navy to build four prototypes of its design for the MQ-25 "Stingray," an unmanned, carrier-based tanker aircraft. The drone "will help extend the range of the Navy's future carrier air wings and keep carriers themselves out of range of coastal defenses," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin and General Atomics for the contract. Northrop Grumman -- which built the Navy's first carrier-based drone prototype, the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System-Demonstration (UCAS-D) -- dropped out of the competition last year. The prototype contract is the first step toward delivering "initial operating capability," a first production run of the drones, by 2024. The MQ-25's design requirements called for an aircraft capable of launching from a carrier deck and delivering 14,000 pounds (6,300kg) of fuel to aircraft 500 nautical miles (926km) away. That capacity and range, along with the low-observable shape of the drone, could essentially double the range of F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-35C Joint Strike Fighter attack missions. Eventually, Boeing could deliver up to 72 Stingrays at a cost of $13 billion.
How much good could be done with $13 billion dollars?
No sig today...
There is nothing more salient that Eisenhower's warning about the Military Industrial Complex. I wonder how much healthcare could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I wonder how many drones Burt Rutan could punch out for that kind of money....a lot more than 72 I'm guessing
$13 billion of work for the home districts of congress critters.
So, you get smart people working for you instead of your enemies, which are looking for these people on LinkedIn.
Much of military and NASA expenditures are high-priced welfare, since corporations could definitely do these things much more economically, if there wasn't some General/Admiral setting stupid requirements without willing to compromise.
Sometimes a requirement can almost be met for 50% less, but the Admiral will say, X is the requirement, not X-0.0001. This happens more often than people know. There is a plus side, it forces new technologies to be used to get to X + 0.0001 solutions, but at a 2-3x price.
We used to see similar solutions by the EPA raising fuel economy standards every 10 yrs. The car companies would complain that it wasn't possible, then find solutions.
The Navy wanted a dual purpose fighter-attack aircraft. To get it, the sacrificed range. The aircraft it replaced had far longer range, being designed for their task. Ever since, the Navy has been reliant on mid-air refueling to get anywhere. Planes launch with large bomb loads and nearly empty tanks, and have to mid-air refuel before they event start the mission.
Two thoughts on this boondoggle: first, it's a terrible waste of money and second (and well put a few posts above), it's an accident waiting to happen on landing.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
No, that is untrue.. The F-35 price has been driven down to $89M each, putting it in the same range as MUCH MUCH less capable aircraft such as the F-18, Eurofighter, and F-15s. In combat exercises, the F-35 has suffered 0 losses to 8 F-15 losses.
Similar results are obtained against the venerable F-16, itself a first-rate 4th generation fighter, and the EuroFighter. One F-16 pilot put it like so: "We went to our simulated airfield out in the far part of the airspace. As the two ship from the northern half of the airspace we turned hot, drove for about 30 seconds and we were dead, just like that. We never even saw (the F-35A).”"
That is not a fluke, and it is not because advances are being given to the F-35s: just the opposite in fact. The overall kill ratio of the F-35 in Red Flag exercises against all 4th gen opponents stands at 15 to 1.
This anti-F35 FUD needs to stop. Yes, the F-35 program has had problems. Yes, it was initially overpriced. But if you will recall the early days of the F-16, when it was known as the "Lawn Dart", it too suffered many early technology issues that left pilots dead and aircraft lost, yet the F-16 turned into one of the premier light fighters of the 80's and 90's.
The F-35 is in a similar place. Prices are being driven down to about where a high end 4th generation aircraft cost, and the plane is simply playing a different game than its 4th generation equivalents due to advances in stealth, in sensor integration, in situational awareness for pilots, and more.
So please stop the F-35 FUD. It's flawed, but so is every complex aircraft ever made.
These weapon systems are so expensive they try to not expose them.
F-35 = $103 million a copy CH-53E = $136 million a copy
The US armed forces tries to not use CH-53E in hostile territory because of cost.
How about F-35s that will never be combat ready. https://www.popularmechanics.c...
Why do we buy these systems?
We should be building planes with longer ranges or evaluate the need / effectiveness of carriers when weapons like the DF-21 stonefish exist.
If it's any consolation, the Chinese Chengdu J-20 is thought to cost in the vicinity of $120 million per unit. I rather like the Chinese concept behind the Chengdu J-31 better, it is estimated to costs only about $60-70 million per unit. It may not be quite as sophisticated as the F-35 but if you can build it in larger numbers that won't matter too much and if the Chinese can achieve the kind of cost lowering the F-35A has achieved as production of it ramped up, the price tag on a J-31 could drop into the $50 million range or lower. In an all out war my money is always going to be on the guy who can make adequate tanks/guns/planes in huge numbers and not on the guy who goes beyond the point of diminishing returns to include lots of engineering excellence in their designs or wastes resources on bleeding edge projects like the Nazis did (and they did both those things).
Against a serious foe such as Russia or China.
So a total waste of money.
of money by not doing single payer. If you take the most anti-single payer stance possible (the Koch Bros) you come up with $2 trillion in savings in 10 years. That's absolute worst case scenario by a right wing think tank trying to torpedo single payer. Other estimates have put it north of $17 trillion. And that's before you start factoring productivity and wage gains from people being healthier and being able to change jobs w/o fear of losing access to their meds and dying.
But heck, lets say we take that $13 billion and just focus on the 45,000 that die every year of preventable illnesses due to lack of healthcare. I think that'd go a long way. It would also help stabilize our country's political situation.
Wages are declining, high paying work's being replaced with McJobs and healthcare and housing are becoming inaccessible. We're in a second gilded age. That's can't continue. Sooner or later it's going to blow up in our faces like it did for Germany in the late 30s/early 40s when the world put those damn reparations on them.
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We spent just shy of $50 billion on it. I'd say it was a resounding success (for the defense contractors). Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make a payment on some student loans.
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It's a STEALTHY carrier based tanker...
Yes, I can read, thank you. At more than $180 million for *each* tanker ("72 Stingrays at a cost of $13 billion..."), this is just a hideous, hideous waste of money! And that doesn't count the inevitable cost overruns. If the military can't think of some significantly smaller expenditures, then we need some new military leaders.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.