The U.S. Air Drive not too long ago awarded contracts to 2 corporations for work on SHARK ‘buddy retailer’ podded aerial refueling techniques capable of work with plane that use the boom method to get fuel in flight. The service has been eyeing a pod like this for years now, which might flip a number of various plane, together with crewed tactical jets just like the F-15, in addition to drones, into small tankers amid increasing demand for aerial refueling capacity that may solely develop additional in a future high-end struggle.
On August 27, the Air Drive Analysis Laboratory (AFRL) awarded Legionnaire International a contract valued at $3,193,251 for work relating to a Small Hybrid Aerial Refueling Kit (SHARK). Two days later, Leidos subsidiary Dynetics received a separate SHARK contract from AFRL valued at $2,677,093. Aviation Week‘s Steve Trimble was first to report on the preliminary SHARK contract to Legionnaire Worldwide.
Each SHARK contract award notices merely say they should do with a “small type issue gas switch mechanism that matches within a modular, platform agnostic, podded, outer mould line.” The general necessities and goals for the SHARK effort are unknown. It’s also unclear whether or not Legionnaire Worldwide and Dynetics at the moment are working individually or cooperatively. The Warfare Zone has reached out to Legionnaire Worldwide, Leidos, and AFRL for extra info.
SHARK seems to be to be associated, at the very least partly, to an Air-to-Air Refueling Mechanism (A2RM) Digital Design Problem that AFWERX, an Air Drive expertise incubator inside AFRL, introduced final 12 months. A2RM “goals to leverage latest technological developments in automated aerial refueling to modernize gas switch techniques for smaller, extra versatile refueling capabilities” and “preliminary scoping for design concerns ought to give attention to preliminary use for the F-15,” according to AFWERX.
The A2RM problem, which stopped taking submissions in January and that AFWERX stated beforehand it anticipated would result in a showcase of down-selected proposals someday in March-April of this 12 months, included 4 particular focus areas. These have been Revolutionary Increase / Receptacle & Probe / Drogue Applied sciences, Gasoline Switch Mechanism Controllability, Platform-Agnostic Interfaces, and Good Sensors & Integrations.
Whereas the precise relationship between SHARK and A2RM is unclear, the latter effort included a call for a particularly similar-sounding “extremely platform agnostic “podded” and “internally stowable” system that “must stow inside system Outer Mildew Line (OML).” The complete “equipment” could be “able to a increase/receptacle refueling (at a minimal), with a want for twin increase/receptacle and probe/drogue refueling.”
Additional necessities included a 36-inch diameter and a 230-inch size to allow the potential of the complete system becoming inside a modified 600-gallon drop tank. The “goal is to slot in [an] even smaller profile of ~330 gal exterior gas tank (extra universally used throughout USAF & USN),” in line with AFWERX. One A2RM graphic, seen under, additionally confirmed a notional gondola-like system with what a retractable and/or collapsible refueling increase. A enterprise jet was additionally depicted as a possible platform to hold the system, together with a bigger twin-engine airliner/business freighter-type design and varied tactical fight jets, together with the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft.
The A2RM problem additional outlined an curiosity in “options that stow their very own gas, options that obtain gas from host plane, and particularly desirous about capabilities that may do each,” in addition to ones “suitable with fielded refueling expertise (relative navigation sensors, pumps/valves, automation, station preserving techniques, and so on)” and that “leverage expertise that may be matured & [made] integratable” no later than Fiscal Yr 2026.
It is very important notice that buddy retailer aerial refueling pods are not new, however traditionally have been designed round the probe-and-drogue method. Probe-and-drogue is the predominant technique employed by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, in addition to many U.S. allies and companions.
Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of U.S. Air Drive plane use the increase technique, as a substitute. Booms supply a quicker gas switch fee, decreasing the time tankers and receivers (particularly bigger ones like bombers, cargo plane, and even different tankers) should be linked, decreasing their vulnerability. Increase tankers are additionally due to this fact capable of prime up extra whole plane in much less general time than it will take with a probe-and-drogue system.
The Air Drive has already been exploring podded aerial refueling capabilities to help receivers configured for the increase technique at some stage since at the very least 2019. Final 12 months, in its proposed finances for the 2024 Fiscal Yr, the Air Drive disclosed that it had accomplished a design for what it described as a “small, pod-mounted tactical air refueling increase,” however offered no additional particulars. The present standing of that undertaking and the way it might or might not relate to SHARK is unknown.
It’s additionally price stating {that a} future SHARK pod won’t function a increase as it’s historically understood. The web site for an entity known as TactiFuel says that it’s a “pupil group” that “first got here collectively by the College of Colorado Boulder’s Designing for Protection program” and subsequently “labored hand in hand with the US Air Drive Analysis Laboratory to design a Small Hybrid Aerial Refueling Equipment (SHARK) prototype.” That prototype design, known as Vampire, concerned a “controllable finish effector” that “will be capable of refuel any NATO plane, together with people who historically require a 30’+ increase directed into the receptacle,” in line with TactiFuel.
General, “the USAF goals to leverage latest technological developments in automated aerial refueling to modernize gas switch techniques for smaller, extra versatile refueling capabilities,” in line with one AFWERX discover concerning the A2RM problem. “These new techniques will allow the USAF to carry out tactical refueling missions akin to the USA Navy’s (USN) buddy tanking, allow automated aerial refueling capabilities, and supply flexibility for mission planners & joint strike packages, to call just a few. … The aptitude is primarily meant to refuel medium to small ‘fighter’ sized plane.”
There are questions concerning the common viability and practicality of a buddy aerial refueling retailer that may prime up plane geared up to get gas by way of the increase technique. To at the present time, boom-equipped tankers have devoted operators who make sure the connections with receiving plane are made security.
Traditionally, these people have been bodily positioned on the rear of tankers to have a transparent view of what they’re doing. Serious issues with the hybrid 2D/3D Take away Imaginative and prescient System (RVS) on Boeing KC-46 tankers, which increase operators use to carry out their tasks from the main cabin, underscore the general complexities involved in one of these aerial refueling. A smaller, lighter, shorter, and/or collapsible increase would possibly current further challenges by presenting a much less sturdy hyperlink and placing the receiver nearer to the plane carrying the pod. The booms on conventional tankers have been identified to interrupt beneath the improper circumstances, as was just recently seen in a mishap off the coast of California final month. Altogether, irrespective of how the SHARK pod is configured, truly using one connected to a single-seat tactical jet, or a pilotless drone, may very well be a difficult proposition.
On this context, A2RM’s give attention to the F-15 platform because the service makes good sense, as a two-seat fight jet like the F-15E Strike Eagle or F-15EX Eagle II might higher handle this workload because of the extra crew member. F-15-series jets are additionally just relatively large aircraft with significant existing internal fuel capacity.
Boeing, in addition to Airbus, have been actively engaged on expertise to more and more automate the method of refueling in mid-air by increase, including demonstrations exhibiting how these capabilities could be used to gas-up drones, as effectively. It’s additionally price noting right here that the flexibility to refuel drones in flight and for drones to refuel different plane (together with different uncrewed ones) in mid-air utilizing the probe-and-drogue technique have also been demonstrated publicly. The Navy is within the strategy of buying MQ-25 Stingray tanker drones that can use probe-and-drogue buddy shops.
Whether or not a podded increase refueling system would be capable of carry a helpful quantity of gas to dump is one other open query. On the similar time, The Warfare Zone has highlighted in the past how drones, particularly, geared up with a buddy retailer like this may very well be utilized in a hub-and-spoke association, ferrying gas from tankers working outdoors of the vary of enemy threats to receivers working on the tactical edge. Larger stealthy tankers, which the U.S. Air Drive has additionally been exploring, would assist push this layered tanking idea into extra contested airspace.
General, the potential worth of a distributed tanking ecosystem for the U.S. army, in addition to its allies and companions, solely seems to be set to develop amid increasing and evolving air protection threats amongst near-peer rivals like China and Russia, in addition to smaller adversaries like Iran and North Korea. This, in flip, may even create further calls for for extra and higher methods to get gas to stealthy platforms working in higher-risk areas, whereas additionally preserving prized aerial refueling property protected.
In a possible future high-end struggle towards China within the Pacific, there could be an added ‘tyranny of distance’ additional magnified by Air Drive and different pleasant plane working in a distributed method to assist scale back their vulnerability to enemy assaults. Conventional tankers must function very far ahead to help new expeditionary and distributed ideas of operations emerging across the U.S. military, together with Air Drive ones collectively known as Agile Combat Employment (ACE). Bigger plane might not be capable of land at many ahead working places, both.
Buddy shops that may refuel plane by way of the increase technique would supply a useful natural asset to these forward-deployed forces, even when only for topping off after launch. This could additionally assist allow tactical plane to take off with extra shops (however much less gas) from shorter runways and nonetheless be capable of attain their goal areas. These are techniques that U.S. Navy and Marine Corps plane can leverage now utilizing probe-and-drogue buddy shops, in addition to smaller C-130-based tankers.
As well as, the Air Drive continues to face shortfalls in general aerial refueling capability while demand grows in peacetime. This, in flip, has now long raised serious concerns about its means to supply gas-on-the-go to pleasant plane throughout a possible all-out battle, equivalent to a high-end struggle within the Pacific towards China. As such, increase refueling pods connected to varied plane might assist present badly wanted further aerial refueling capability, general.
The Air Drive has raised the chance that a few of its future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones, which it hopes to purchase hundreds, if not thousands of within the coming years, may very well be capable of refueling in mid-air. This could additional improve the demand for aerial refueling capability. It’s attention-grabbing to notice right here that one AFWERX A2RM graphic, seen under, depicts a notional drone design being refueled in flight by way of a increase.
All of this comes because the Air Drive is going through the prospect of at greatest severely truncated budgets within the coming years. A significant evaluate of the plans to amass a new crewed sixth-generation stealth combat jet as a part of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) modernization initiative has proven that even tasks beforehand described as prime priorities aren’t protected from severe cuts. This could solely immediate questions concerning the service’s beforehand said plans to amass extra survivable tankers no later than 2040, the centerpiece of its broader Next-Generation Air-Refueling System (NGAS) effort.
“There . . . will doubtless should be some dedication past the Air Drive to get the type of growth cash and procurement [funding] that it takes to truly make that fee,” now-retired Air Drive Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, then Deputy Chief of Employees for Plans and Applications, stated concerning the service’s future tanker plans on the Aerial Refueling Methods Advisory Group’s annual symposium in April, according to Aviation Week. “However till we all know what the choices are, we don’t even have an thought what that appears like.”
Regardless of the Air Drive’s aerial refueling ecosystem would possibly seem like going ahead, the latest SHARK contracts present continued curiosity in new buddy shops that may hook up with receivers that use the increase technique being part of it.
Contact the writer: joe@twz.com
