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When it comes to phantom aircraft that are the product of 'bleeding-edge' technologies and supposedly exist only in the shadows, the so-called RQ-180 is unrivaled in our time. The existence of this high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) stealth drone has all but been officially disclosed. Specters of its existence and growing maturity seem to materialize around every turn, and as of November 2020, the public may have gotten its first glimpse of this aircraft that has existed behind a veil of secrecy and innuendo for over a decade. This is the first in a three-part series—the product of a ghost hunt of sorts that has lasted well over two years—that tells the story—as best as we can piece it together—of what is likely the most important military aircraft of a generation.
With that said, we need to start at the basics—what is this aircraft supposed to do and why does it exist?
This is an impossible question for us to answer definitively at this time, and details are bound to change, in some cases significantly, but drawing on a large number of clues, open-source information, historical precedent, capability gaps, emerging technologies, ongoing procurement and development initiatives, the picture, at least as we see it, becomes somewhat clear
As we understand how something like this would fit into a larger revolutionary air combat and networking ecosystem the Pentagon is quietly building out, the RQ-180 could be defined as a networking and reconnaissance platform that is capable of penetrating and persisting deep into enemy airspace. We are talking about a large, twin-engine, flying wing aircraft with slender laminar-flow optimized wings. Its overall design is largely motivated by highly advanced, broadband, all-aspect, very low-observable (stealth) requirements. It is meant to fly at very high altitudes in contested airspace, at or in excess of 70,000 feet, for very long periods of time without ever being detected.
It's important to note that while the reconnaissance side of its mission set gets all the attention, we believe the RQ-180's potential ability to work as a high-flying networking node and information gateway is likely even more important, as we have touched on over the years.
Let's break these two mission sets down in regards to what this platform could bring to the table and why its capabilities would be so critically important.
Highly detailed computer-based mission planning, which was absolutely state-of-the-art at the time of its introduction, leveraged the latest intelligence and the careful execution of that plan was just as important to the F-117's survivability as its stealthy design. This planning also included critically-timed pre-planned coordination with other assets, like electronic warfare aircraft, which F-117s crews had no control over during their missions. Once an F-117 pilot passed into contested airspace, it was just them and their mission plan, which by then was based on hours or even days-old information. Even two-way voice communications were all but non-existent once the jet was 'cleaned up' to maximize its low-observable cloak.
It is important to remember that stealth aircraft are not actually invisible to radar, but can avoid detection as long as they remain at a certain distance from a particular threat. That distance is dependent on an aircraft's stealthy design, its aspect in relation to a said threat system, and that threat system's unique capabilities. This equation changes with the frequency that the threat emitteris operating on and the stealth aircraft's ability to minimize its returns against those particular radar emissions. Thankfully, for most stealthy aircraft, the range difference between intermittent detection and the threat's ability to successfully engage is vastly different. Today, electronic warfare capabilities, including onboard stealth aircraft as well as external to them, play a big part in their survivability.
Regardless, fast forward to the present and the most valuable weapon one can have on an incredibly fast-moving modern battlefield is information and lots of it. Real-time awareness of threats that can pose a danger even hundreds of miles away can mean the difference between life and death.
But there is a larger picture. The sharing of critical information across huge areas in such a way that it does not give away the positions of those connected to the network and being able to fuse huge amounts of data from disparate platforms and send it all over the globe are the keys to winning the future fight. This is extremely challenging to do with stealth aircraft whose radio frequency emissions can give away their presence just as easily as if their stealthy cloaks were suddenly ripped away.
Past datalink systems that are omnidirectional in nature and were not developed for low-observable (stealthy) operations just won't do. As such, new waveforms and datalink architectures have been developed that are highly directional in nature and use the latest in antenna technologies combined with low-probability of intercept (LPI) transmission methods to make them nearly undetectable and largely unjammable.
Link 16, depicted in a very basic form above, is the most prolific datalink system, but it is not designed for low observability. While stealthy aircraft can receive Link 16 data if it is available, they have trouble broadcasting on it without potentially giving away their position. Other waveforms and networking architecture have been designed specifically for low-observable aircraft.
The F-35's Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) is the system that is being adopted not just for its originating aircraft, but also for the B-21, and likely other new stealthy aircraft belonging to a family of systems that will make air combat of the past look quaint in comparison.
MADL can connect F-35s, and in the future, disparate stealthy platforms, together in a secure manner within line-of-sight via a mesh-like network. Just like any fighter datalink system that relies on line-of-sight connectivity, MADL is great for formations of aircraft that operate in the vicinity of one another, but it has major limitations. Namely, the battlefield of tomorrow will be expansive with massive amounts of data accrued from sensors in space, on the ground, at sea, and in the air, both on and over the battlefield and hundreds or even thousands of miles away, along its outer edges. While the F-35's organic electronic intelligence-gathering capabilities are fantastic, and the B-21 will be even more so, they pale in comparison to being able to exploit data from a far larger array of dispersed platforms and intelligence sources, some of which won't have MADL and won't be within line-of-sight of stealthy aircraft with the datalink system.
The F-35's MADL system is incredibly capable, but it has its limitations
More importantly, it isn't just a way-one connection that is needed. Being able to exchange information in both directions and have a forward operating stealthy platform help cue a weapon on a target when that weapon may be located hundreds or thousands of miles away will be another key to winning tomorrow's war. For instance, an F-35 may detect a target of opportunity, or maybe even an impediment to its own mission, that is too heavily defended even for it or its available weapons to make a successful attack on it. A hypersonic weapon, located on a destroyer many hundreds of miles away, would not have a problem neutralizing it. The real-time targeting data acquired by the F-35's sensors will be needed by the ship launching the weapon and even possibly piped to the hypersonic weapon as it makes its high-speed approach to its target. This type of remote launch concept is all based on seamless data sharing across a vast battlespace.
Right now, that may be possible by 'daisy-chaining' MADL-equipped aircraft together in order to push info they collect securely back towards less contested territory, and data forward, as well. Once outside contested airspace, the MADL data can be passed to a very non-stealthy information gateway platform in the air, at sea, or on the ground, that can then send that information to other players in the battlespace and around the globe via a high-bandwidth satellite datalink.
XQ-58 flying alongside and F-22 and F-35 during a networking experiment. The two fighter aircraft use unique and very stealthy datalinks that cannot talk to each other. While the Air Force is experimenting with tactical unmanned information gateways like the XQ-58 that will allow stealthy assets using different datalink systems to talk to each other within line-of-sight, it does not address the glaring beyond-line-of-sight connectivity issues and its capabilities pale in comparison to what an aircraft like a high-flying, long-endurance stealthy networking drone could offer. In fact, drones like the XQ-58 could leverage the advanced networking capability that an aircraft like the RQ-180 could provide to a more critical degree than their manned counterparts.
Unfortunately, this is a poor solution, at best, that has major limitations, and one that won't work in a massive contested theater, like, say, the Pacific. It is also absurdly resource-intensive to connect along what is akin to a line-of-sight limited information chain made up of MADL-carrying stealthy aircraft that spans hundreds or even thousands of miles, before that information would be able to be sent to other battlefield assets and command and control centers. The same can be said for information being pushed forward from those rear-echelon sources to the stealthy combat aircraft downrange. And even then, the bandwidth would likely be limited, and above all else, such a chain would be only as strong as its weakest link—lose one relay aircraft and the entire chain could collapse.
The RQ-180, from its perch at very high altitude and deep over enemy airspace where stealthy tactical assets like fighters and drones would be operating below, would be able to collect that line-of-sight datalink data from systems like the F-35 and B-21's MADL, and the F-22's stealthy Intra-Flight Data Link (IFDL). IFDL cannot talk directly to MADL, incidentally, but the RQ-180 could fuse the data together before redistributing it back to assets below in their proprietary datalink waveforms. This would give each aircraft a 'god's eye view' of the battlespace with the inclusion of every player's location, status, and relevant sensor data.
This level of data fusion and connectivity drastically increases the fidelity of the info at hand in each aircraft's cockpit or in each drone's computerized brain, and thus increases awareness and cooperation, which in turn significantly enhances lethality and survivability. It also makes reliably connecting things like low-flying assets to the greater force a reality as maintaining a line-of-sight datalink with other lower flying assets in high terrain can be very problematic. What's maybe even more important is that the RQ-180 would also be able to send all that data it collects around the world via high-bandwidth satellite connectivity.
So, not only would this create a much more capable 'active' network with free-flowing information over a huge swathe of the battlespace, vastly improving upon MADL's more limited mesh-like network capabilities and other less capable but still stealthy datalink systems, but it can also feed all that info anywhere in the world and receive and redistribute information over the battlefield from anywhere, as well.
The concept of operations for a high-flying advanced networking aircraft that is capable of surviving in contested airspace that will enable the USAF's stealthy air combat fleet has been around, albeit in a fleet manner, for some time. Here you can see a basic idea of how this would work, albeit in a very limited manner. Note it also shows the F-35's daisy-chain setup. A B-2-like aircraft is also present, acting as a communications gateway, but those bombers do not have this capability today. So, in this graphic, it is likely a stand-in for something else—the concept we are discussing and very likely a critical role for the RQ-180 airframe.
A similar, although a less advanced example of this general concept is flying today, but its mission is not about linking stealth aircraft together in contested airspace. In fact, it is entirely vulnerable to nearby enemy actions. What we are talking about is the Battlefield Airborne Communication Node (BACN), a communications gateway payload presently carried by the EQ-4B variant of the Global Hawk and the E-11A, which you can read all about in this past feature of ours.
Another existing datalink fusion capability is the Roll-On Beyond line-of-sight Enhancement system, or ROBE, which can be installed on some KC-135 tankers and enables an 'active net' for Link 16 and Situational Awareness Data Link (SADL) used by legacy non-stealthy assets. It can fuse information from aircraft with those disparate datalinks together and rebroadcast a common picture back on their individual waveforms. Once again, this drastically enhances the situational awareness and cooperative potential of aircraft flying in the battlespace.
The EQ-4B would be something of a non-survivable progenitor of an advanced networking RQ-180 derivative built for operations in contested airspace.
Acting as the ultimate force multiplier, a very low-observable, high-flying drone with a communications gateway package would also allow commanders thousands of miles away to see exactly what is going on with their 'invisible' aircraft fleets operating downrange over very dangerous territory. Once again, this would occur via relaying a completely fused 'picture' of the battlefield collected through all the assets the RQ-180 is connected to. It would also allow those commanders to make changes to the battleplan in real-time, piping down orders from around the globe via satellite to the RQ-180 and onto the stealthy players below via their own low probability of intercept datalinks. In addition, those stealthy aircraft could also take full advantage of all the real-time intelligence the Pentagon and its allies have to muster, regardless if it is collected by something with a stealthy datalink within line-of-sight of them or not.
In other words, an RQ-180 networking aircraft would act as a two-lane information bridge of sorts, reaching far back outside of the battlespace to provide a god's eye picture of that battlespace and the stealthy aircraft within it to key decision-makers, while also reaching forward, down to those same aircraft with far more information than they could garner on their own or via other aircraft in their own formations. The high perch of the RQ-180 would also provide for greatly increased line-of-sight distances compared to what the combat platforms operating far down below can provide via their own datalink systems.

The RQ-180 Drone Will Emerge From The Shadows As The Centerpiece Of An Air Combat Revolution
The Air Force's secretive, very stealthy, and high-flying drone won't be just a better spy aircraft, it will be a deeply networked game-changer.


The RQ-180 Drone Will Emerge From The Shadows As The Centerpiece Of A Air Combat Revolution
The Air Force's secretive, very stealthy, and high-flying drone won't be just a better spy aircraft, it will be a deeply networked game-changer.
BY TYLER ROGOWAY APRIL 1, 2021When it comes to phantom aircraft that are the product of 'bleeding-edge' technologies and supposedly exist only in the shadows, the so-called RQ-180 is unrivaled in our time. The existence of this high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) stealth drone has all but been officially disclosed. Specters of its existence and growing maturity seem to materialize around every turn, and as of November 2020, the public may have gotten its first glimpse of this aircraft that has existed behind a veil of secrecy and innuendo for over a decade. This is the first in a three-part series—the product of a ghost hunt of sorts that has lasted well over two years—that tells the story—as best as we can piece it together—of what is likely the most important military aircraft of a generation.
What is an "RQ-180?"
First off, we have no idea what the exotic flying machine in question's actual designation is. The name comes from Aviation Week's original reporting on an aircraft that some of us had speculated existed for some time. The RQ-180 designation is simply a notional expansion of the designation of Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works' RQ-170 Sentinel. The two platforms are in some way complementary to one another, but the RQ-170 is definitely the older, lower-tier, lower-flying, more tactically-oriented, and less advanced of the two concepts. Both are flying wing designs. They are or certainly will be capable of integrating together, at least to some degree, but beyond that, they are not directly related.With that said, we need to start at the basics—what is this aircraft supposed to do and why does it exist?
This is an impossible question for us to answer definitively at this time, and details are bound to change, in some cases significantly, but drawing on a large number of clues, open-source information, historical precedent, capability gaps, emerging technologies, ongoing procurement and development initiatives, the picture, at least as we see it, becomes somewhat clear
As we understand how something like this would fit into a larger revolutionary air combat and networking ecosystem the Pentagon is quietly building out, the RQ-180 could be defined as a networking and reconnaissance platform that is capable of penetrating and persisting deep into enemy airspace. We are talking about a large, twin-engine, flying wing aircraft with slender laminar-flow optimized wings. Its overall design is largely motivated by highly advanced, broadband, all-aspect, very low-observable (stealth) requirements. It is meant to fly at very high altitudes in contested airspace, at or in excess of 70,000 feet, for very long periods of time without ever being detected.
It's important to note that while the reconnaissance side of its mission set gets all the attention, we believe the RQ-180's potential ability to work as a high-flying networking node and information gateway is likely even more important, as we have touched on over the years.
Let's break these two mission sets down in regards to what this platform could bring to the table and why its capabilities would be so critically important.
A high-flying, long-endurance, and survivable information gateway
Just because you can build and deploy aircraft like B-21 Raiders, F-22 Raptors, F-35 Lightnings, and advanced unmanned combat air vehicles—low-observable (stealthy) combat aircraft that can work to knock down the enemy's air defenses or sneak past them entirely to deliver devastating blows to critical targets—it doesn't mean you can leverage these forces to their maximum potential. The F-117 Nighthawk, the world's first operational stealth aircraft, provided next to no real-time situational awareness to its pilot. Literally, they were cocooned inside its stealth bubble, cut off from the war-torn environment exploding around them.Highly detailed computer-based mission planning, which was absolutely state-of-the-art at the time of its introduction, leveraged the latest intelligence and the careful execution of that plan was just as important to the F-117's survivability as its stealthy design. This planning also included critically-timed pre-planned coordination with other assets, like electronic warfare aircraft, which F-117s crews had no control over during their missions. Once an F-117 pilot passed into contested airspace, it was just them and their mission plan, which by then was based on hours or even days-old information. Even two-way voice communications were all but non-existent once the jet was 'cleaned up' to maximize its low-observable cloak.
It is important to remember that stealth aircraft are not actually invisible to radar, but can avoid detection as long as they remain at a certain distance from a particular threat. That distance is dependent on an aircraft's stealthy design, its aspect in relation to a said threat system, and that threat system's unique capabilities. This equation changes with the frequency that the threat emitteris operating on and the stealth aircraft's ability to minimize its returns against those particular radar emissions. Thankfully, for most stealthy aircraft, the range difference between intermittent detection and the threat's ability to successfully engage is vastly different. Today, electronic warfare capabilities, including onboard stealth aircraft as well as external to them, play a big part in their survivability.
Regardless, fast forward to the present and the most valuable weapon one can have on an incredibly fast-moving modern battlefield is information and lots of it. Real-time awareness of threats that can pose a danger even hundreds of miles away can mean the difference between life and death.
INFORMATION EQUALS SURVIVABILITY AND LETHALITY
Information in the form of battlefield situational awareness is now also key to the survivability of combat aircraft, and especially stealthy aircraft that will be operating in the highest risk areas. They need to know everything relevant that is happening around them so they can alter their game plan on the fly, which could include killing direct threats as they emerge or assisting other aircraft in rapidly finding and killing them before they pose a major risk to other assets in the battlespace.But there is a larger picture. The sharing of critical information across huge areas in such a way that it does not give away the positions of those connected to the network and being able to fuse huge amounts of data from disparate platforms and send it all over the globe are the keys to winning the future fight. This is extremely challenging to do with stealth aircraft whose radio frequency emissions can give away their presence just as easily as if their stealthy cloaks were suddenly ripped away.
Past datalink systems that are omnidirectional in nature and were not developed for low-observable (stealthy) operations just won't do. As such, new waveforms and datalink architectures have been developed that are highly directional in nature and use the latest in antenna technologies combined with low-probability of intercept (LPI) transmission methods to make them nearly undetectable and largely unjammable.
Link 16, depicted in a very basic form above, is the most prolific datalink system, but it is not designed for low observability. While stealthy aircraft can receive Link 16 data if it is available, they have trouble broadcasting on it without potentially giving away their position. Other waveforms and networking architecture have been designed specifically for low-observable aircraft.
The F-35's Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) is the system that is being adopted not just for its originating aircraft, but also for the B-21, and likely other new stealthy aircraft belonging to a family of systems that will make air combat of the past look quaint in comparison.
MADL can connect F-35s, and in the future, disparate stealthy platforms, together in a secure manner within line-of-sight via a mesh-like network. Just like any fighter datalink system that relies on line-of-sight connectivity, MADL is great for formations of aircraft that operate in the vicinity of one another, but it has major limitations. Namely, the battlefield of tomorrow will be expansive with massive amounts of data accrued from sensors in space, on the ground, at sea, and in the air, both on and over the battlefield and hundreds or even thousands of miles away, along its outer edges. While the F-35's organic electronic intelligence-gathering capabilities are fantastic, and the B-21 will be even more so, they pale in comparison to being able to exploit data from a far larger array of dispersed platforms and intelligence sources, some of which won't have MADL and won't be within line-of-sight of stealthy aircraft with the datalink system.
The F-35's MADL system is incredibly capable, but it has its limitations
More importantly, it isn't just a way-one connection that is needed. Being able to exchange information in both directions and have a forward operating stealthy platform help cue a weapon on a target when that weapon may be located hundreds or thousands of miles away will be another key to winning tomorrow's war. For instance, an F-35 may detect a target of opportunity, or maybe even an impediment to its own mission, that is too heavily defended even for it or its available weapons to make a successful attack on it. A hypersonic weapon, located on a destroyer many hundreds of miles away, would not have a problem neutralizing it. The real-time targeting data acquired by the F-35's sensors will be needed by the ship launching the weapon and even possibly piped to the hypersonic weapon as it makes its high-speed approach to its target. This type of remote launch concept is all based on seamless data sharing across a vast battlespace.
Right now, that may be possible by 'daisy-chaining' MADL-equipped aircraft together in order to push info they collect securely back towards less contested territory, and data forward, as well. Once outside contested airspace, the MADL data can be passed to a very non-stealthy information gateway platform in the air, at sea, or on the ground, that can then send that information to other players in the battlespace and around the globe via a high-bandwidth satellite datalink.
XQ-58 flying alongside and F-22 and F-35 during a networking experiment. The two fighter aircraft use unique and very stealthy datalinks that cannot talk to each other. While the Air Force is experimenting with tactical unmanned information gateways like the XQ-58 that will allow stealthy assets using different datalink systems to talk to each other within line-of-sight, it does not address the glaring beyond-line-of-sight connectivity issues and its capabilities pale in comparison to what an aircraft like a high-flying, long-endurance stealthy networking drone could offer. In fact, drones like the XQ-58 could leverage the advanced networking capability that an aircraft like the RQ-180 could provide to a more critical degree than their manned counterparts.
Unfortunately, this is a poor solution, at best, that has major limitations, and one that won't work in a massive contested theater, like, say, the Pacific. It is also absurdly resource-intensive to connect along what is akin to a line-of-sight limited information chain made up of MADL-carrying stealthy aircraft that spans hundreds or even thousands of miles, before that information would be able to be sent to other battlefield assets and command and control centers. The same can be said for information being pushed forward from those rear-echelon sources to the stealthy combat aircraft downrange. And even then, the bandwidth would likely be limited, and above all else, such a chain would be only as strong as its weakest link—lose one relay aircraft and the entire chain could collapse.
THE "EQ-180" SOLUTION
So, what's the answer here? The logical one would be the 'RQ-180,' or more like an 'EQ-180' variant of it, but we will continue to call it an RQ-180 for simplicity's sake for the rest of this section.The RQ-180, from its perch at very high altitude and deep over enemy airspace where stealthy tactical assets like fighters and drones would be operating below, would be able to collect that line-of-sight datalink data from systems like the F-35 and B-21's MADL, and the F-22's stealthy Intra-Flight Data Link (IFDL). IFDL cannot talk directly to MADL, incidentally, but the RQ-180 could fuse the data together before redistributing it back to assets below in their proprietary datalink waveforms. This would give each aircraft a 'god's eye view' of the battlespace with the inclusion of every player's location, status, and relevant sensor data.
This level of data fusion and connectivity drastically increases the fidelity of the info at hand in each aircraft's cockpit or in each drone's computerized brain, and thus increases awareness and cooperation, which in turn significantly enhances lethality and survivability. It also makes reliably connecting things like low-flying assets to the greater force a reality as maintaining a line-of-sight datalink with other lower flying assets in high terrain can be very problematic. What's maybe even more important is that the RQ-180 would also be able to send all that data it collects around the world via high-bandwidth satellite connectivity.
So, not only would this create a much more capable 'active' network with free-flowing information over a huge swathe of the battlespace, vastly improving upon MADL's more limited mesh-like network capabilities and other less capable but still stealthy datalink systems, but it can also feed all that info anywhere in the world and receive and redistribute information over the battlefield from anywhere, as well.
The concept of operations for a high-flying advanced networking aircraft that is capable of surviving in contested airspace that will enable the USAF's stealthy air combat fleet has been around, albeit in a fleet manner, for some time. Here you can see a basic idea of how this would work, albeit in a very limited manner. Note it also shows the F-35's daisy-chain setup. A B-2-like aircraft is also present, acting as a communications gateway, but those bombers do not have this capability today. So, in this graphic, it is likely a stand-in for something else—the concept we are discussing and very likely a critical role for the RQ-180 airframe.
A similar, although a less advanced example of this general concept is flying today, but its mission is not about linking stealth aircraft together in contested airspace. In fact, it is entirely vulnerable to nearby enemy actions. What we are talking about is the Battlefield Airborne Communication Node (BACN), a communications gateway payload presently carried by the EQ-4B variant of the Global Hawk and the E-11A, which you can read all about in this past feature of ours.
Another existing datalink fusion capability is the Roll-On Beyond line-of-sight Enhancement system, or ROBE, which can be installed on some KC-135 tankers and enables an 'active net' for Link 16 and Situational Awareness Data Link (SADL) used by legacy non-stealthy assets. It can fuse information from aircraft with those disparate datalinks together and rebroadcast a common picture back on their individual waveforms. Once again, this drastically enhances the situational awareness and cooperative potential of aircraft flying in the battlespace.
The EQ-4B would be something of a non-survivable progenitor of an advanced networking RQ-180 derivative built for operations in contested airspace.
Acting as the ultimate force multiplier, a very low-observable, high-flying drone with a communications gateway package would also allow commanders thousands of miles away to see exactly what is going on with their 'invisible' aircraft fleets operating downrange over very dangerous territory. Once again, this would occur via relaying a completely fused 'picture' of the battlefield collected through all the assets the RQ-180 is connected to. It would also allow those commanders to make changes to the battleplan in real-time, piping down orders from around the globe via satellite to the RQ-180 and onto the stealthy players below via their own low probability of intercept datalinks. In addition, those stealthy aircraft could also take full advantage of all the real-time intelligence the Pentagon and its allies have to muster, regardless if it is collected by something with a stealthy datalink within line-of-sight of them or not.
In other words, an RQ-180 networking aircraft would act as a two-lane information bridge of sorts, reaching far back outside of the battlespace to provide a god's eye picture of that battlespace and the stealthy aircraft within it to key decision-makers, while also reaching forward, down to those same aircraft with far more information than they could garner on their own or via other aircraft in their own formations. The high perch of the RQ-180 would also provide for greatly increased line-of-sight distances compared to what the combat platforms operating far down below can provide via their own datalink systems.