Boeing photo
The Boeing X-45C will finally get a chance to fly. The manufacturer today announced the new "Phantom Ray" testbed based on the unflown X-45C airframe will perform a series of 10 flights starting in 2010. A Boeing spokesman tells FlightGlobal.com that the Phantom Ray is not focused at any particular program or competition."It's just that we have this asset and obviously UAVs are a huge part of the fleet ... and we want to obviously be a part of that and we think the Phantom Ray certainly has potential to use those technologies. As a UCAS, it's unmistaken that there's nothing else flying like it," Boeing's spokesman said.
on May 8, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply
In some ways this is encouraging;a giant Tech'Corp' finally spending its own money on a project and offering it to the government on its own merits. A RARE thing these days.
on May 8, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply
Kris – most people don’t know this but the entire X-45 program at Boeing up thru the canceling of the program was done at no-profit and Boeing kicked in an estimated $750 million of its own money from 1999 – 2007 (some info has it going much higher). That is one of the major items that made the all the shenanigans which occurred in canceling the program and starting a new program that give it to Northrop generate so much ill wind and anger from Boeing corporate at the time.
on May 9, 2009 6:41 AM | Reply
One might also note that NG got the contract to develop the Navy's X-47B UCAS-D demonstrator due in no small part to their self-funded success the X-47A Pegasus. I'm pretty sure their FireScout was the same kind of project initially, Others could perhaps provide further examples?
Little secret: Companies love to have in-house developments pay off because they have more rights and potential for profit. The gov't loves to buy their way into these efforts with IR&D money because then they can choose the programs and companies where the tech (and dollars) will go.
on May 9, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply
If memory serves, Boeing have not won on their own (as opposed to by merger) a major, new air frame contract from the US Gov since the B-52/KC-135 era. The have lost the F-111, the medium tanker (KC-10), the C-141, C-5 and C-17, the JSF, and the KC-767 tanker leases. There may be others I am not remembering. They delivered AWACS and spy planes but these were small in number and not new designs, but mods of the KC-135/707 air frames. The P-8 program is also just a 737 mod.
I wonder if Boeing will ever be able to overcome the suspicion within the Gov that must exist as to whether they can effectively bring any new, major program to fruition on time and on budget and within applicable laws, regulations, and ethical standards? Among other hurdles, Boeing will have to overcome the major stigma attached to their criminal activities re the KC-767 leases. (I remember a news piece that reported re that debacle that the US Attorney's office said Boeing (at least IDS) was "rotten to the core.")
Other barriers to success include Boeing's inexplicable failure to deliver on time to Japan and Italy the very 767 tankers they were trying to sell to the Gov. This failure told the Gov that on top of the crooked leases Boeing could not even figure out how to make a relatively simply modification of the 767, a plane they had been building for decades.
Most of all, Boeing I think have to overcome their on-going, complete, 110%, 24 carat botch of the 787 program. We all know the sad facts and failures that amount to a managerial melt down of historic proportions in the 787 program. The 787 program was revolutionary. How could the Gov ever trust Boeing not to repeat their shocking incompetences in similar Gov programs?