With nine years experience of flying a semi-stealthy jet UAV, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) is telling the U.S. Navy that it can quickly develop the required solution for an unmanned carrier-based tanker. GA-ASI said that it is using company-owned Predator C Avenger aircraft for early ground and flight tests of the deck-handling system, MQ-25 mission-specific hardware and software, and all flight and mission datalinks and communications.

The extended range (ER) version of the Avenger has demonstrated an endurance of more than 23 hours in an ISR configuration. The Avenger ER made its first flight in October 2016, and is the third iteration of a jet that was developed with company funds and that made its first flight in April 2009. Compared to the original version, the ER has a longer fuselage, a longer, redesigned wing spanning 76 feet, and a new undercarriage to support a greater mtow of 19,500 pounds. The payload is 3,000 pounds, which can be carried internally in a large bomb bay or on wing hardpoints. The Avenger can use the same communications links and ground control stations as the GA-ASI MQ-9 Predator B (Reaper) turboprop. 

This AIN editor was recently shown the original Predator C Avenger jet, registered N901PC, which is still flying from the company’s Gray Butte test facility in the Mojave desert in California. GA-ASI still declines to identify any customers for the Avenger, although a small number may have been flown by the CIA over Afghanistan and neighboring countries earlier in this decade. The U.S. Air Force evaluated the Avenger for its next-generation UAS requirement dubbed MQ-X, but eventually decided to continue production of the MQ-9. The company said last week that the Avenger series had now accumulated over 20,000 flying hours.

GA-ASI has also marketed its only jet for maritime applications to the U.S. Navy and potential foreign customers, notably India, as the Sea Avenger. The company was one of four to receive study contracts from the U.S. Navy for the proposed unmanned carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike (UCLASS) aircraft. But when this requirement evolved into the less stealthy MQ-25 with air refueling as the primary mission, GA-ASI offered a new design, which it partly revealed in February.