The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that work on autonomous, carrier-based refuelling and logistics aircraft for the Royal Navy remains ongoing, underlining that no decisions have yet been taken on fielding such systems.
In written answers to the House of Lords, defence minister Lord Coaker said the Royal Navy is “exploring Fixed Wing Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACPs) as an augmentation for the F-35B Lightning jets embarked on Queen Elizabeth Class carriers,” including their potential role in air-to-air refuelling within the future Hybrid Air Wing.
The statement confirms that autonomous refuelling aircraft remain part of active capability development rather than a settled procurement. Lord Coaker said the Royal Navy will work “collaboratively with the Royal Air Force to evaluate emerging solutions for this capability.”
The minister pointed to Project Vanquish as the current demonstrator effort, describing it as “the demonstration of a short take-off and landing jet-powered ACP to a QEC carrier,” and said it represents “the first step to realising this ambition.” No in-service date or procurement decision has yet been set.
In a separate written answer, Lord Coaker also reaffirmed that the Royal Navy is still assessing options for an autonomous Carrier Onboard Delivery capability. He said “all options for a Carrier Onboard Delivery capability are being considered,” with work underway on unmanned maritime lift concepts.
That activity includes trials of “fixed and rotary-wing aircraft capable of operating from Queen Elizabeth Class carriers,” but again without a commitment to a specific platform or timetable.
Both capability areas are linked to the Hybrid Air Wing model recommended in the Strategic Defence Review. Lord Coaker said that “investment decisions to support Strategic Defence Review recommendations are being developed” and will be detailed in the Defence Investment Plan.
No money. No funding. No Direction. The only things it produces is powerpoint slides to allow Ministers to pretend activity.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the MOD Imaginarium.
All doom and gloom from you, innit? Have you perhaps considered that industry has yet to furnish any options that they could invest in? Hard to buy something that doesn’t exist.
No decision. Of course not. Onwards and downwards we go.
The carrier ACP is described as ‘strike and AAR’ rather than including air to air. Possibly an indication that they will be relatively heavy and slow, taking over heavy cruise missile carriage from F35 and with lifting capacity for AAR? If so, it will be very interesting to see what industry come up with to try and land such a jet on a carrier.
Carrier based drone refilling is largely irrelevant for UK carriers operating F35B.
Getting drop tanks on F35B is much much more useful and relevant. These were key to Israel success. Crazy that LM is not offering them.
LM are looking again at external tanks, 600 gallon rather than the original 462 gallon ones originally proposed. Probably manufactured by Cyclone in Israel.
But, in the spirit of pantomime,
everyone together now…
“its dependent on Block 4”
100% agree
Its largely irrelevant because we just announced end of global deployments so our carriers will be operating off the coast of allied nations. There not really a strong case for carriers let alone carribased refusing drones.
Let’s hope the friendly nations are nowhere near unfriendly nations.
Where exactly did we announce this
The original testing with 462 gallon drop tanks increased fuel by 32% but range only by 12% due to the extra drag. That would amount to an extra 100km range while destroying stealth. It wasn’t considered worth the effort. The 600 gallon drop tanks, with some tweaking to aerodynamics are hoping to push that to an extra 20% range.
Meanwhile an MQ-25 can deliver a full F35B fuel load (6,800kg) at a distance of 500 nautical miles, or basically the furthest combat distance of an F35B. That drastically changes your tactical options.
But we can’t get them without spending billions on catapults
DOH!! Of course no procurement decision has been made, you can’t buy something that doesn’t exist 🤷🏻♂️
Only the Yanks are developing a drone refueller, the Boring MQ-25 Stingray. It’s far from operational let alone proven. It also uses a catapult though it may be possible for it to use a ski-jump instead.
Still, nothing being on the market to buy hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from complaining that nothing has been bought… 🤦🏻♂️
Even if the MQ-25 can use the ski-jump, it will definitely need traps to land. It’s the size and weight of a strike fighter. Anything that size will have to come with a real willingness to spend money on modifying the QEs with traps at the very least (cats and/or angled decks aside).
The only other remotely realistic and available option I can think of for aerial refueling from a non-modified QE would be an Osprey with the VARS kit, and the VARS kit was cancelled.
I have to agree with Jim, drop tanks for the F-35B are a must.
I can’t see the point either.
External tanks are a cheaper, easier, and faster to implement solution (Block 4 permitting 🙏🏻).
Only if an even greater range on top is required would I think about looking at drones.
Drones offer some new and novel capabilities but people are beginning to see them as the answer to all issues, when there’s sometimes something more appropriate.
The original testing with 462 gallon drop tanks increased fuel by 32% but range only by 12% due to the extra drag. That would amount to an extra 100km range while destroying stealth. It wasn’t considered worth the effort. The 600 gallon drop tanks, with some tweaking to aerodynamics are hoping to push that to an extra 20% range.
Ideally they need something to extend their range, but probably fanciful to imagine it will happen.
An alternate would be to buy 2 or 3 Embraer KC-390 for the RN FAA. Able to operate from primitive airstrips that RAF Voyager cannot. The KC-390 could thus stay closer to the fleet.
Interesting alternative, and sounds very viable for the atlantic theatre. Probably not glitzy enough for the MoD though!
Or buddy pods. Would reduce an F-35’s steath but better than nothing.
The AirTanker contract we have prohibits us from using any other aircraft for refuelling than Voyagers. Stupid, I know. They wanted to experiment with the Atlas refuelling module so they could tank helicopters like the Chinook (Voyagers can’t fly slow enough) but they were prevented by that contract.
More likely it’s an excuse not to pay for any new refuelling methods, a single contract can’t stop a dedicated effort
Is that just the RAF though? Could the RN FAA be exempt from that contract?
Think that was the argument the RAF used in the past to try and convince the government to get rid of the carriers…. The RAF could deploy anywhere and be supported by long range tankers flying from friendly countries…
What’s the point? Given the lack of offensive weaponry on our F35s, would it not be better to spend money on addressing that rather than give them the ability tp fly around for longer carrying nothing?
What do you think ASRAAM, AMRAAM and Enhanced Paveway 4 are?… Toys?
I wouldn’t call ASRAAM or AMRAAM offensive weapons, would you?
And I would contend Paveway is of little use in a contested environment.
The F35 is designed to operate in a contested environment. That’s exactly what its designed for. Paveway 4 provides all weather day/night precision targeting against fixed and moving targets. It can be re-targeted in flight if need be. Standoff is clearly desirable. But Paveway 4 is a very deadly and fixable weapon. The RAF has dropped more PE4s since its introduced to service then any other weapon.
Because we’ve been bombing terrorists not peer threats
I mean did we really invest in aircraft carriers and F-35s to utilise Paveway in peer to peer conflicts? If so we have been had, in reality Paveways are being utilised to make the best of a very bad job. I would contend that in most cases stealth would instil limited confidence in any pilot if he had to use a Paveways in such circumstances. A damn brave pilot at that, and I doubt we could handle the attrition for long either especially in a thirties environment when stealth and sensors will be a rather less predictable mix.
Very true. But the advantages the F35 brings are not just limited by the ordnance it can drop. SPEAR 3 and maybe in the shorter time, the small diameter bomb will bring more options.
On the Iran raid, F-35’s flew straight over AA missile batteries and dropped the equivalent of Israeli JDAM’s.
Great, except Iran is a backwater compared to Russia or Iran, and you think Russian or Chinese ships will be incapable of seeing a Jdam dropping F35?
Considering they were using Chinese air defenses, to some degree, yes.
And what about the carrier that has to get far closer to allow F35 to drop Paveway, that’s also part of the equation.
What isn’t under review? Even the review is under review.
By the time we come to any point to order anything another review will be due for sure.
So all the talk about autonomous and optionally manned stuff over the last 12 months is all just crap and just that, talk.
Move along, there is nothing to see.
I am glad to seethe RN is not trying to go back to old fourth generation solutions. We also need to have a next generation AEW, not the current obsolescent system.
AEW is the obvious use for drones on the carriers, not refuelling.
MQ-25 is designed to tank a full F35B capacity out at 500 miles distance. That gives you much greater penetration. You could theoretically boost the range of an F35B strike formation with MQ-25s from 833km out to maybe 1,500km from the carrier.
Except…
(a) it’s still in development and not operationally proven
(b) currently incompatible with QE class (no catapult or arrestor)
(c) at $130 million each is more expensive than an F35B
So external tanks seem a far better option for now.
The real price of a F-35B is $160m
Wrong. It’s $109 million, fly-away cost, for the F35B.
wwwaerotime.aero/articles/27553-top-10-most-expensive-fighter-jets
(Insert dot after www)
A drone isn’t going to deliver anything much better
It may not be better on paper with regards specification, but it’d be possible to have several of them airborne at a time, all the time, providing coverage 24 hours a day. Unlike with Merlin and Crowsnest.
Subject to the Defence Investment Plan finally being approved, three tenders important to the RN should be issued very soon:
1. Commercial Mission Partner(s) (CMP) for the Royal Navy’s Atlantic Net (AN) initiative, delayed from Q4 2025
2. Carrier Strike AEW (CSAEW) on 1 January 2026, Est value £1 Bn (ex VAT)
3. VANQUISH ACP Technical Demonstration on 12 January 2026, Est value £10 Mn (ex VAT)
Procurement decisions are expected to follow very quickly, i.e. within months or even weeks – not the usual years, or even decades. 1SL (General Sir Gwyn Jenkins) is a man in a hurry!
Carriers are best at giving us strke capability 1000s of miles from allied bases where IFR gives us addtional stabd off. With UK announcing European defence is priority and far flung deployments are thing of the past we don’t really need this capability. Our F35 A and B can utilise Allied airfields or even the millions of km of paved road in Europe.
We were told this by Healy pre election global capabilities would be cut and a refocus of European defence would be the strategy. Not sure why anyone is surprised by the direction defence is going. It was clear 2 years ago to the electorate and its the result of a democratic vote.
“far flung deployments are thing” – if that’s the case, how come why’re going to be deploying on rotation an Astute to Australia.
Healey approved Operation Highmast which began after Labour came to office.
Carriers are frequently involved in NATO exercises in European/ Atlantic waters. They’re aren’t just for power projection strikes thousands of miles away.
It would be most amusing to see what an F35Bs downward jet blast does to ‘paved roads in Europe’. We also don’t have F35As.
You need to do better both in your facts and in your English grammar, vatnik.
Weren’t they developing special transportable ‘mats’ for this purpose? Haven’t heard anything for ages mind. Either way it sorely limits an F-35s utility and flexibility as yes anything else would seriously risk re-ingestion of all manner of debris. They did tests with Pegasus when the supersonic Harrier was proposed and again indeed when the Boeing proposal was still alive and it certainly presented challenges from what I understand.
There was talk in ‘23 of the RAF using aluminium AM-2 mats to allow use of highways. However for STOVL they were looking at needing over 1,500 feet of mats…
(Marham has Vertical Landing Pads made of a special heat-resistant concrete.)
Cognito68 has nailed it. Lots of talk and No Action!!! Need some JFDI attitude in UKGov.
It seems as if everything, and I mean everything, at the MOD is on hold. Something nasty is stirring methinks.
How? You want them to buy something that doesn’t exist? Have them develop the equivalent of the MQ-25 that is still not operational after 9 years of development?? 🤦🏻♂️
External tanks are the cheap, low-risk, option.
Not cheap and not ready yet either
They are cheap when compared to the alternative, MQ-25 costs minimum $130 each – that’s more than an F35.
Also like external tanks, the MQ-25 isn’t ready either – despite 9 years of development.
Seems pretty clear you can’t get enough fuel payload off a carrier without cats and traps and a carrier without aerial refuel is in huge danger of being sunk.
The F35B is the only aircraft that’s capable of taking significant payload off a QE so surely worth exploring the possibility of a F35B gas tank, spec without the radar and other expensive bits, get some external tanks on it and task it as sole purpose to fly fuel out to 500 miles.
Ref drop tanks on F35B, lots of issues there:
1. Reduces offensive payload
2. Compromise stealth
3. Lack of flexibility, with aerial refuel you can stay up and on patrol or fuel up on way out and way back, with drop tanks you remain limited to what you can carry.
2. Two options:
• drop tanks which will degrade stealth, but then so does external weapons
• conformal fuel tanks
As soon as I saw the “heavy drone EMALS” for the QEs I was hoping we’d see this.
Fully autonomous refueling and AEW&C drone network orbiting the CSG.
What could be really exciting is the idea of VLBI applied to radar.
Surely this would be a project worth pursuing with Italy and Japan, seeing as we’re all already working on an aircraft project together and all rely on the STOVL F-35B for carrier operations?
Really to make these carriers flexible we should bite the bullet and install Cat-and-Traps.
Each year we delay the price increases.
😆
The MOD is looking for a cheap off and almost off the shelf ACP able to carry a substantial payload via an unassisted short take-off and (preferably) vertical landing. In order to refuel a pair of F-35B’s, a payload of less than 8000kg seems pointless. The laws of flight can only be defied with very deep pockets. There is no unmanned platform able to operate from the QEC that can meet the requirement. AEW and COD/AAR variants of the manned V-22 Osprey seem the only plausible but very expensive option. The refusal to fit the QEC with EMALS and an arresting system has gone far beyond a defiance of logic, it’s now a sacred cow that seems to be above any challenge or criticism.
The most logical answer: The F-35B
It can carry 18,000lbs of external ordinance. Have cobham develop a buddy tanking package, same as the F-18 uses. If it can carry 6000kg of gas in external tanks and pass it via centerline probe and droge at 250nm, thats a huge win.
The internal plumbing will be the most challenging part.
The more I think about IFR & AEW, I keep on thinking of a hot air balloon!
Sounds like a load of hot air… But I’m wondering if an airship could refuel the B’s.
No, it would be far too slow
Funny I was thinking Hot Air recently. You could preposition two low viz airships with a wire between attached to a winged fuel tank which is caught and towed behind the 1st F35B while the 2nd takes the fuel on board. Simples and ready for 1/4/27 per the Generals time scale.