Five years ago, the Boeing X-45 and Northrop Grumman X-47 dueled for US Air Force and Navy contracts worth billions of dollars under the long-defunct joint unmanned combat air systems (J-UCAS) program. The J-UCAS program is dead but the picture above shows how the X-45/X-47 competition lives on.
Boeing has released a new photo showing the Phantom Ray -- a company-funded descendant of J-UCAS. The unmanned demonstrator is scheduled to begin a series of 10 test flights in December.
Phantom Ray is designed to carry a 4,500lb payload in two internal bays, with the option of two 2,000lb JDAMs or an intelligence sensor (either a synthetic aperture radar or electro-optical/infrared). The aircraft could be applied to a variety of different requirements, Daryl Davis, president of Boeing advanced systems, told reporters. A scaled-up and optionally-manned version could be offered for the US Air Force's long-range strike requirement. The demonstrator above might provide the USAF a replacement for the Predator/Reaper family, he says.
Meanwhile, the other former J-UCAS competitor is also expected to enter flight test in December. Northrop's X-47B has a contract worth more than $1 billion to demonstrate that a stealthy, tailless planform can land autonomously on a carrier deck. The X-47B will also participate in autonomous air refeuling trials.
Boeing also has submitted the Phantom Ray to the Department of Defense as a candidate for demonstrating that a unmanned air vehicle can be refueled in-flight, Davis says.
If anything, maybe it means the billions of dollars spent on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's series of J-UCAS in the first half of the last decade won't be wasted after all.
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