First production MQ-25 completes inaugural flight, escorted by TA-4J Skyhawk

Boeing’s first production-representative MQ-25 Stingray flew on April 25 from MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, giving the U.S. Navy its first airborne test of the carrier tanker design it plans to field. (aerotime.aero) (boeing.com) The MQ-25 is an uncrewed tanker: a pilot on the carrier or ashore controls the mission system, and the aircraft’s main job is to pass fuel to other Navy aircraft in flight. Boeing says the MQ-25A is the Navy’s first operational carrier-based unmanned aircraft. (boeing.com) (navair.navy.mil) This flight was not the program’s first ever. Boeing’s T1 demonstrator first flew in September 2019, but Congress says that aircraft lacked some features planned for the developmental and production MQ-25 fleet. (defensenews.com) (congress.gov) Boeing says the T1 test asset has already refueled three carrier aircraft types: the F/A-18 Super Hornet, the E-2D Hawkeye and the F-35C Lightning II. That earlier work proved the basic refueling concept before the Navy’s production-representative airframe got airborne. (boeing.com) (defensenews.com) The Navy wants the MQ-25 to take over a job now done by F/A-18E/F fighters carrying refueling pods for other jets. Congress says that shift is meant to extend the effective range of crewed fighters and reduce wear on strike aircraft now pulled into the tanker role. (congress.gov) (navair.navy.mil) The program has slipped. The Navy originally awarded Boeing an $805.3 million contract in August 2018 for four MQ-25A air vehicles, and NAVAIR’s original notice pointed to initial operational capability by 2024. (navair.navy.mil) By 2025, Navy leaders were publicly talking about a 2026 carrier debut, and reporting in late 2025 and early 2026 said first flight had moved from 2025 into early 2026. (news.usni.org) (theaviationist.com) (aviationweek.com) Congress’s latest program snapshot says the Navy requested $1.04 billion for MQ-25 procurement and research in fiscal 2026, enough to buy three aircraft in the first year of low-rate initial production. The current program of record is 76 aircraft: 67 operational and nine test and developmental airframes. (congress.gov) NAVAIR says the MQ-25 is also tied to a new Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System and shipboard control stations called Unmanned Air Warfare Centers. USS George H.W. Bush received the first of those control centers in 2024 for future MQ-25 airborne operations. (navair.navy.mil 1) (navair.navy.mil 2) The Navy describes the Stingray as a “pathfinder” for a future carrier air wing with more manned-unmanned teaming. Saturday’s flight did not put the MQ-25 on a carrier yet, but it moved the program from delays and taxi tests into the flight phase the fleet has been waiting on. (congress.gov) (boeing.com)