The tanker qualification partnership paves the way for an extended reach and enhanced interoperability for allied airpower, says the U.S. Navy.
The U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) announced that testing is in progress to improve interoperability with allies by allowing the French-made Rafale to refuel the F/A-18 family of jets. “The tanker qualification partnership paves the way for an extended reach and enhanced interoperability for allied airpower, says the service.”
Tanker certification
The testing is being conducted by a joint team from the Flight Test Division of the French Directorate General of Armaments (Direction Générale de l’Armement – DGA/EV) and Naval Aeronautics Experimentation Center (CEPA/10S), and the U.S. Navy’s Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23. The activities will enable the Rafale to refuel the F/A-18C/D Hornet, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler.
The service did not provide details about the locating and timing of the testing. However, two of the photos released on the DVIDS (Defense Visual Information Distribution Service) network show a Rafale M and an F/A-18D flying over NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, with the photos’ EXIF data saying they were captured on Apr. 28, 2025.
A third photo, showing the Rafale refueling an F/A-18F, appears to have been captured on Apr. 1, indicating that testing might have been going at least for a month. All the photos show the same Rafale and is thus unclear if at least another aircraft was deployed to Pax River as a spare, although it is likely.
Planned development
While the intention to certify the Rafale to refuel the F/A-18, this idea might have been already in the plans for some time. In fact, a French Navy Rafale M already refueled an F/A-18F Super Hornet earlier this year.
As we reported in February 2025, the U.S. Navy, French Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force conducted a Multi-Large Deck Event (MLDE) during Exercise Pacific Steller in the Philippine Sea. In addition to cross-deck flight operations of the naval fighters, the event also saw a Rafale refueling a Super Hornet, as shown by photos and videos.
It is unclear if the F/A-18 has already been refueled by a Rafale M in the past, as no other reference to such an operation is available. However, the F/A-18 has refueled the Rafale in the past, with at least an occasion in March 2015 over the Persian Gulf, when an F/A-18E refueled two Super Etendards and a Rafale M.
Rafale as tanker
The Rafale M, while at sea on the FNS Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier, also performs the tanker role, similarly to U.S. Navy’s F/A-18s at sea. Carrier-based aircraft not always have “standard” tanker aircraft available, and some of the fighters are used not only to extend the range of operational missions, but also for safety reasons, such as providing fuel to aircraft which are waiting to safely land.
The configuration is also similar, with both the Rafale and F/A-18 carrying four external fuel tanks and a “buddy” refueling pod. Specifically, the Rafale in the tanker configuration carries two 2,000 liters and two 1,250 liters external fuel tank, together with the NARANG (nacelle de ravitaillement nouvelle generation, new generation refueling pod) buddy refueling pod.
The Rafale F3-R, which entered service in March 2021, introduced a new air refueling capability thanks to the NARANG pods. The pod was built by Safran on the basis of the lessons learned with the previous systems previously used by the now retired Etendard and Super Etendard and now the Rafale.
The French Navy certified the Narang in January 2021, just two months before the fielding of the Rafale F3-R. Since its first operational deployment during the Clemenceau mission performed by the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the same year, the pod has logged about 250 hours of operation, according to information released in 2024.
As the Rafale and Super Hornet have already practiced multiple times cross-deck operation for improved interoperability, certifying the two fighters to be able to refuel each other will improve interoperability even more. This might even open up to the possibility of deploying fighters on each other’s aircraft carrier, similarly to the U.S. Marine Corps’ F-35B deploying on the Royal Navy’s HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier in 2020.
