Phantom Works Aims High

Judging solely from what Boeing's Phantom Works development organization has in the pipeline, the company has lots to look forward to. Now it just has to prove it can turn some of these technology demonstrators into cash flow. Doing so will be no easy task given increasingly tight military budgets, although flying the hypersonic X-51 at Mach 6, or the Phantom Eye unmanned aircraft for 10 days, is no trivial assignment either. What is clear is that answers to some of the technical questions will start emerging in the coming months, whereas validating the business case for some of these endeavors may be years off ...