Report: Boeing’s MQ-25 Tanker Drone Offering Undergoes Tests Ahead of Source Selection Decision

Boeing has already conducted several tests of its proposed unmanned aircraft system for the U.S. Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray carrier-based aerial refueling tanker drone program ahead of the service’s contract award decision, National Defense reported Friday.

“We have already demonstrated a lot of the functionality… We have done almost everything short of flying,” Donald “BD” Gaddis, Boeing’s MQ-25 program director, told reporters Thursday during a tour of the firm’s St. Louis, Missouri-based facilities.

Gaddis said the Naval Air Systems Command intends to award by the end of summer 2018 a fixed-price contract to produce four aircraft as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson aims to speed up the MQ-25 program’s development timeline.

“Normally it takes NAVAIR about 18 months to do a source selection like this. … They’re going to do it in six months,” he added.

Gaddis noted that Boeing has made an investment in risk-reduction efforts upfront for its T-1 prototype in order to gain an advantage in the Stingray competition.

Lockheed Martin launched its proposed concept for the MQ-25 Stringray program in March three months after Boeing and General Atomics unveiled their design concepts.