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Boeing moves forward with Phantom Eye
Boeing's long-endurance Phantom Eye UAV is set to begin flight trials from NASA's Dryden facility in California in the first quarter of 2011.
The hydrogen-powered twin-engined technology demonstrator is currently being assembled inside an anonymous hangar outside St Louis by a six-strong engineering team, who plan to have the aircraft unveiled in mid-August.
The Phantom Eye demonstrator has been designed to operate at an altitude of 65,000 feet and remain there for four days while carrying a payload weighing 450 lb. Phantom Eye is a 60% scale demonstrator of a planned HALE UAV that could operate with a 1,000 lb payload at the same altitude for ten days or with a 2,000 lb for seven days.
Despite being a 60% demonstrator, the Phantom Eye weighs in at 7,500 lb empty weight and features a wingspan of 150 feet while the fuselage is 53 feet long.
Phantom Eye is powered by a pair of Ford 2.3 litre turbocharged combustion engines from the Ranger pick-up truck. Those engines drive a pair of four-bladed propellers, each propeller measuring some eight feet in length. The aircraft does not have landing gear – instead the aircraft will be launched from a cart which has been undergoing testing at an airfield just outside St Louis. The aircraft lands on its belly.
Drew Mallow, director of advanced flight operations at Boeing's Phantom Works, said that engineers had employed and tried out 17 new manufacturing and testing techniques during the build of the aircraft including the use of autoclave property composites cured at room temperature rather than in the autoclave.
'We are determined to beat the endurance record set by the Boeing Condor,' said Mallow, 'but the demonstrator will also need to prove the reliability and durability of some of the aircraft systems.'
Mallow said the first flight will probably last between four to eight hours, with long endurance flights probably taking place during flights four and five. Boeing believes the evolution of Phantom Eye could give the highly persistent ISR or communications relay platform.
Company literature claims that the aircraft would be a far more effective and persistence platform than the Global Hawk at distances beyond 4000 nautical miles.
However, Phantom Eye is just a precursor. Boeing is working on its SolarEagle concept to meet the requirements of DARPA's Vulture programme to build a solar-powered UAV that can stay aloft for as long as five years and act as a pseudo communications satellite.
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