Boeing Building UAV Fighter?

Boeing announced last month that its first unmanned jet fighter-sized aircraft, is on track to have its first flight this year.

Because it looks somewhat like a manta ray, it’s called “Phantom Ray,” a spokesman said.

A fly-by-mouse-click design, the aircraft is “piloted” by an operator watching a computer screen in a fortified trailer that can be deployed near a war zone. With a 50-foot wingspan and measuring 36 feet from nose to tail,it has the speed and altitude of a manned fighter plane, but greater range, Boeing said.

Flying at Mach 0.8 at an altitude of 40,000 feet, Phantom Ray will have a range of up to 1,500 miles, compared with about 600 miles for a Boeing-built F/A-18 manned fighter jet.

“We are on a fast track,” said Darryl Davis, president of Boeing’s Phantom Works research unit that developed the aircraft. “Phantom Ray is on schedule to fly in December.”

The pilotless unmanned aircraft is designed to execute a full range of potential military missions, including surveillance and reconnaissance; long-range, pre-emptive strikes against enemy air defenses; bombing of ground targets, and even aerial refueling.

Notice Boeing did not mention dogfighting, however.

Phantom Ray has its origins in the X-45 prototype, developed by Boeing to compete for the U.S. military's Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) program, a $1.2 billion research effort funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy.

Smaller X-45 concept models successfully flew 64 flights from 2002 through 2005 but In 2007, the Navy chose Northrop Grumman’s X-47 unmanned vehicle over Boeing’s X-45 concept.

Since then, Boeing said it has continued development of the unmanned jet with internal funding.