The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in a demonstration with NASA has performed the first-ever hands-off probe and drogue air refueling mission, employing a NASA F/A-18 operating as an unmanned test bed. According to a DARPA release, the Autonomous Airborne Refueling Demonstration used GPS navigation and an optical tracker to precisely position the refueling probe into the basket lowered from an aerial refueling aircraft. Air Force Lt. Col. Jim McCormick, DARPA program manager, said using the probe and drogue method provided “the most challenging [situation] for autonomous systems.” The capability “applies equally to the boom and receptacle method used by most Air Force aircraft,” he added. The flight was the seventh in a planned series of eight, but was the first one to demonstrate a hands-off approach. (How, or if, this gels with last year’s effort by the Air Force Test Pilot School is unclear.)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.