Lockheed Martin's paradoxically famous/secret Skunk Works has released the first image of its futuristic stealth tanker aircraft designed to refuel US and allied warplanes at long distances close to combat zones sometime in the 2040s.
Officially known as the Advanced Development Programs (ADP), the Skunk Works division was founded sometime between 1939 and 1943, depending on who's telling the story, and its engineers living under conditions of tight security cranked out the P-38 Lightning, P-80 Shooting Star, the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor, and F-35 Lightning II.
In their spare time, they also worked on supersonic transports, hypersonic research planes, space launch vehicles, a fusion reactor, and even a stealth boat that was featured in a Bond thriller.
Today, the US government is pushing to develop a new family of aerial tankers to replace the aging fleet of KC-135 Stratotankers. These tankers are essential to US and allied flight operations because they allow warplanes to operate far out of range of their bases. They are what made it possible for B-52s to reach anywhere in the world from the 1950s onward, and for British Vulcan bombers to strike Stanley Airport in the South Atlantic during the Falklands War in 1982 from bases in southern England.
The changing geopolitical situation and the increasing territorial ambitions of China have made such refueling systems even more important than during the Cold War. Worse, if war breaks out in the Indo-Pacific region, allied aircraft will not only have to operate at long distances over open seas, they will also rely on tankers flying much closer to the front lines.
Though no details have been released about the NGAS tanker, the Lockheed Martin image shows that it's a smaller, more agile aircraft capable of carrying a relatively large amount of fuel close to what is politely referred to as contested airspace. The plane has a distinctly futuristic profile with its lambda-style wings that should provide stealth as well as strength and design flexibility.
This stealth aspect is emphasized by the chine-line on the fuselage from the nose back to where it blends with the wing to disrupt radar signals. The twin air intakes are rounded and recessed, and the double V-tail suggests recessed exhausts to reduce both radar and heat signatures.
The cockpit has high visibility and suggests a flight crew of two. The general layout also hints that the boom projecting from the belly of the NGAS while refueling may be under full autonomous control without the need for a boom operator. There's even a refueling port on top of the NGAS fuselage, indicating that the tanker itself might be able to accept fuel from another tanker in flight, showing that it's intended for very long range missions.
The apparent stealth, range, and high survivability of the NGAS design dovetails with indications by the US Air Force that such future tankers will be designed as multi-mission platforms – if only because they're so eye-wateringly expensive. This means it could be used for intelligence and reconnaissance, command and control, or as arsenal ships for swarms and missiles.
Source: Lockheed Martin via Aviation Week
