Boeing’s [BA] Phantom Eye is still in its early stages of development but the firm is confident that in the years ahead the unmanned aerial vehicle will be able to compete for military contracts with Northrop Grumman’s [NOC] Global Hawk.
Boeing expects to conduct a second round of taxi tests in the days ahead if weather conditions are suitable at Edwards AFB, Calif. Boeing’s Phantom Works outfit for advanced projects hopes to begin flight tests later this year, with the ultimate goal of ascending to 65,000 feet with the hydrogen powered aircraft, said Drew Mallow, the company’s program manager for Phantom Eye.
The 150-foot wingspan demonstrator is designed to fly for four days with long-term plans to expand the wingspan to 250 feet with larger fuel tanks that will allow it to stay aloft for as long as 10 days, Mallow said. He said Phantom Eye’s long endurance capability enabled by hydrogen fuel will give it a formidable presence in the high-altitude UAV market and will be able to challenges Global Hawk. Global Hawk has been the Pentagon’s most prominent high altitude unmanned system, capable of flying to 65,000 feet and staying in the air for 35 hours. Mallow, however, said the plane is at least a couple years away from competing with Global Hawk.
“What we’d like to do is use this year with flying the vehicle and expanding the envelope to prove its capability so when future opportunities come in a year to two that we’re positioned from a technology and risk reduction perspective,” he said.
“Getting it up to 65,000 feet is probably the next biggest challenge,” he said. Phantom Works hopes to reach that threshold by the third or forth flight, he said.
Phantom Eye is being internally funded by Boeing and has garnered the interest of the Air Force, Army, and Navy. But the most interest has been shown by the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The plane is being looked as a system for early detection of enemy missile launches and eventually the possibility of carrying a kill vehicle to take out a missile, Mallow said.
“We have a platform that we think has a lot of capability we want to use for ISR communications,” he said. But it could evolve into providing greater capabilities, he said.