Ferrying F-35s From Guam to Taiwan: A Look at America’s New Stealth Tanker Concept

<p >A new concept design for an aerial refuelling aircraft with sophisticated stealth capabilities has been put forward by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced projects division, with the aircraft rendered refuelling two U.S. Air Force F-35As with a pair of booms. Stealth features seen on the aircraft include low observable shaping on its wingtip pods, and a chine line around the forward fuselage and continuing on either aft of the wing roots. First shown at the Airlift/Tanker Association’s recent annual symposium, the proposed new airframe has swept main wings and horizontal stabilisers with canted outboard vertical stabilisers. It is reported that the aircraft will be unmanned or optionally manned, following on from the development of the much smaller unmanned MQ-25 Stingray by Boeing for carrier based aerial refuelling operations. The latest design is far from the first to be shown by Lockheed Martin as a proposal for a new tanker class with stealth capabilities, which is considered a particularly urgently needed asset type as the Pentagon focuses increasingly sharply on the Pacific. The Pacific theatre requires fighters to operate over far longer distances than is needed for operations in Europe and the Middle East or for the defence of American territorial airspace. </p><p ><img src=" title="U.S. Navy MQ-25 Unmanned Tanker Refuels F-35 – artwork"></p><p >The timing of the unveiling of the new stealth tanker concept is significant, as the U.S. Air Force has for months been reevaluating its <a href=" target="_blank">NGAD sixth generation fighter program</a> which was intended to provide a very high performing long range air superiority fighter for Pacific operations. The possible cancellation of the fighter program, and other proposals for a much smaller and shorter ranged aircraft to reduce costs, would ensure that the Air Force’s top fighter units would still be heavily reliant on tanker support for aerial refuelling to operate in a major war against China or North Korea. Although the American tanker fleet accounts for more than half of the world’s aerial refuelling aircraft today, not only is it ageing fast, but its survivability against long range missile attacks is increasingly limited, with China fielding a range of well optimised <a href=" target="_blank">‘tanker killer’ assets</a>. The fact that Chinese fighters on average have much longer ranges than their American counterparts, with the country’s <a href=" target="_blank">top fighter the J-20 </a>having over double the range of the F-35 or F-22, further exacerbates the need for a survivable stealth tanker to bridge the gap. An unmanned aircraft much smaller than existing tankers such as the KC-46 would also introduce a degree of expendability and likely cost significant less than a large manned tanker class. </p>