Some interesting comments were made by Steve Trimble from Aviation Week regarding purported Air Force and Navy Long Range Strike Aircraft during the Check Six podcast on Friday, Aug. 22nd.
Specifically, he points out that in the Senate version of the budget bill it mentions a classified Air Force and a classified Navy long range strike aircraft. He seems very confident that the Air Force version is in development by Lockheed and is the aircraft that is responsible for the losses in the Skunk Works division.
Mr. Trimble further points out that two years into the EMD of the MQ-25 in 2021, the Navy decided to take away the ground control station design from Boeing and give it to Lockheed. This doesn’t really make any sense from the outside, unless you want a single standardized ground control station to control both of your unmanned aircraft and the Lockheed system was already further along.
He finally brings up that in 2020, the Navy said that 60% percent of the air wing would be unmanned. None of the publicly available development roadmaps at the time supported that at the time or since. One way to get to something close to that would be to have an air wing comprised of F-35, F/A-XX, Long Range Strike UAS and MQ-25.
The Podcast can be found here:
Specifically, he points out that in the Senate version of the budget bill it mentions a classified Air Force and a classified Navy long range strike aircraft. He seems very confident that the Air Force version is in development by Lockheed and is the aircraft that is responsible for the losses in the Skunk Works division.
Mr. Trimble further points out that two years into the EMD of the MQ-25 in 2021, the Navy decided to take away the ground control station design from Boeing and give it to Lockheed. This doesn’t really make any sense from the outside, unless you want a single standardized ground control station to control both of your unmanned aircraft and the Lockheed system was already further along.
He finally brings up that in 2020, the Navy said that 60% percent of the air wing would be unmanned. None of the publicly available development roadmaps at the time supported that at the time or since. One way to get to something close to that would be to have an air wing comprised of F-35, F/A-XX, Long Range Strike UAS and MQ-25.
The Podcast can be found here: