Boeing Phantom Ray Takes A Ride On NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

Boeing Phantom Ray Takes A Ride On NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

Here it is ladies and gentlemen, Boeing's Phantom Ray unmanned airborne system. This little streaker is about to undergo ground manuverability and delivery testing in preparation for it's flight test schedualed for early 2011 at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

Yes, this is a public revelation of one of Boeing's PantomWorks programs. ENJOY!

Saw these in the movie Skyline, thought they were fake, but they are real very real.At least it keeps a pilot from getting killed.

reply to post by Lost in america


With no human jello on board there's no life support equipment; and ejection seat ( less weight) .No canopy ( better aerodynamics and stealth). high G force maneuvering is limited by the strength of the materials and the design.
win- win except for the macho "pilot oriented culture" of the force..
cool post thanks.

I have massive reservations about unmanned military aircraft, particularly seek and destroy types. I just think we are heading down the wrong road here... and a few pilot deaths is a small price for having a human in the immediate loop. But then again I am supposed to be too old fashioned, lol.

reply to post by Tayesin


This craft is still piloted by a human... the pilot simulates the cockpit remotely from DreamLand.

Hope that places your mind at ease.

reply to post by Heyyo_yoyo

Yep, I know that. The technology interests me so I am read up on it. But a guy on relay from 3,000 to 10,000 K's away is not a direct human in the loop as compared to a pilot on board the aircraft.

My concern is that we are eagerly heading towards a real world where machines independantly do the warring on humans and other machines, etc. Machines already in service are capable of submitting their own flight plans before take-off, are quite able to scan possible targets and decide which are "enemy". At the moment these machines have a human to tell them "Fire", yet the technology on board is capable of following a set of orders including "Fire" when the targets are designated "enemy".

That is my concern, and the fact that we are happily running to reach this level of Machine Independance.

They did this decades ago with the D-21 that would release from a SR-71.

Didn't pan out too well when it came back and struck the SR-71.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy0QUwxY5mQ

Thought I'd help embed that youtube vid...




Well, I wonder what went wrong? Needless to say at any rate I'm sure today's tech is a bit more reliable than it was back in te 60's.

Originally posted by Heyyo_yoyo


Well, I wonder what went wrong? Needless to say at any rate I'm sure today's tech is a bit more reliable than it was back in te 60's.

We had a $2 Billion B-2 bomber smack down in the middle of our airfield on Guam and completely burn up to nothing.

F-22's first deployment to the Pacific was canceled when their computers crashed "when they hit the international date line".

Technology can fail. The more complicated we make things, the higher the probability something is going to fail.

looks like the B2 bomber...

wouldnt take too much to turn this into a manned space fighter...

Here are some videos of the Phantom Ray doing ground tests and taking a ride on a NASA 747.