Posted on 06/10/2021 10:14:51 AM PDT by White Lives Matter
An unmanned tanker drone successfully refueled a fighter jet in mid-air during a test flight on Friday.
The impressive feat, which involved a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet, demonstrated the significant potential of unmanned tanker drones and could mark the beginning of the end for traditional piloted tanker aircraft.
During the test flight, the drone - a Boeing-built device named MQ-25 Stingray - maintained its altitude and speed as the hose extended and the two aircraft briefly linked up to exchange fuel.
The test was carried out from the MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois.
In total, 325lbs of fuel was transferred during the flight which lasted 4.5 hours.
(Excerpt) Read more at unexplained-mysteries.com ...
Some people would say that when jihadis fight each other, the world becomes a better place. Perhaps the money was well spent...
The one I am familiar with was a NASA F-18 with the drogue. I wasn’t on the program personally so I don’t have details.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/multimedia/imagegallery/F-15a_845/EC02-0294-4.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Y7fhIasjM
So it’s only been modeled. Hasn’t been done. I would have been impressed if the loop had been closed from the receiving end. That’s probably still under development. There are a lot of dynamics involved between the drogue and the probe of an aircraft trying to plug. I can see that being a tough problem, though with computer vision systems and some computer learning algorithms, not beyond technology.
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