Phantom Ray

With a 50-foot wingspan and measuring 36 feet long, Phantom Ray was designed and developed by Boeing Phantom Works based on a prototype the company had originally created for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program.

After only two years of development, the Phantom Ray unmanned airborne system (UAS) was unveiled at a ceremony in St. Louis on 10 May 2010. Built by Boeing in St. Louis, the sleek, fighter-sized UAS combines survivability with a powerful arsenal of new capabilities. "Phantom Ray offers a host of options for our customers as a test bed for advanced technologies, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; suppression of enemy air defenses; electronic attack and autonomous aerial refueling - the possibilities are nearly endless," said Dennis Muilenburg, president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security.

With a 50-foot wingspan and measuring 36 feet long, Phantom Ray was designed and developed by Boeing Phantom Works based on a prototype the company had originally created less than a decade ago for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)/U.S. Air Force/U.S. Navy Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program. Using a rapid-prototyping approach, Phantom Ray evolved into the technology demonstrator unveiled today on the floor of Boeing's St. Louis facility.

"We're really excited about this because Phantom Works is back as a rapid prototyping house, operation and organization," said Craig Brown, Boeing Phantom Ray program manager. "This is the first of what I expect to be many exciting prototypes, and they're all with exciting technology."

Financed entirely by Boeing, Phantom Ray is a testament to the company and its Phantom Works division's commitment to becoming the leader in the global unmanned systems market. "Phantom Ray represents a series of significant changes we're making within Boeing Defense, Space & Security," said Darryl Davis, president of Phantom Works. "For the first time in a long time, we are spending our own money on designing, building and flying near-operational prototypes. We're spending that money to leverage the decades of experience we have in unmanned systems that span the gamut from sea to space."

This aircraft is on-schedule to take its first taxi tests later in the summer of 2010 and soar through its initial flight profiles as early as December 2010, continuously gaining ground toward becoming an unmanned system that could one day penetrate enemy forces and provide a new specter of security for the warfighter.

The Boeing Phantom Ray unmanned airborne system sits atop a NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified Boeing 747. The two aircraft made aviation history on the same flight, thanks to some way-out-of-the-box thinking and a special adapter, both courtesy of Boeing engineers. The Phantom Ray and the adapter weigh approximately 30,000 pounds together, but weight was not an issue, since the shuttle orbiter weighs 220,000 pounds while being ferried on an SCA.

The Phantom Ray drone took to the skies for 17 minutes over Edwards Air Force Base 27 April 2011, proving its airworthiness and showing off Boeing's ability to quickly design and build a prototype advanced unmanned air system.

Key suppliers	General Electric-Aviation · propulsion and power distribution Honeywell · brake system Woodward-HRT · flight control actuation system Crane Hydro-Aire · brake controls Heroux-Devtek · landing gear
Length	36 ft	10.9 m
Wingspan	50 ft	15.2 m
Gross Weight	36,500 lbs	16,556 kg
Operating Altitude	40,000 ft	12,192 m
Cruise Mach	0.8 614 mph	988 km/h
Engine	F404-GE-102D