Long before daybreak in the high desert of California, a Boeing team prepares the Phantom Eye demonstrator for another in a series of test flights. It will be a few hours before this one-of-a-kind unmanned aircraft—powered by two Ford Ranger engines converted to burn hydrogen— lifts off from its special launch cart and soars away over the Mojave Desert. On this June test flight, shown in the photos on these pages, the Phantom Eye demonstrator reached 43,400 feet (13,300 meters). The goal is for the demonstrator to cruise up to 60,000 feet (18,300 meters). With prototype development funded by Boeing Phantom Works, the Phantom Eye demonstrator is designed to cruise high above the earth for days at a time, providing new capabilities for intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, and a variety of other military or civilian missions. Since June 2013, Boeing has been on contract to fly instrumentation payloads aboard Phantom Eye for the Missile Defense Agency. Phantom Eye flew for the first time more than two years ago, the start of a comprehensive flight-test program that has seen higher and longer missions as PHOTO: Before sunrise, Boeing’s Phantom Eye demonstrator is towed from its fueling pad for preflight preparations. Its unique liquid hydrogen fuel system requires safety procedures more like a spacecraft’s than an airplane’s. Frontiers August 2014 31
Frontiers August 2014 Issue
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