• Fighter-Size Phantom Ray UAV Flies Into Your Nightmares

    John Biggs

    Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

    Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

    This fighter-size UAV is called the Phantom Ray and may have played a part in the recent events in Pakistan. Designed around the Boeing X-45, this UAV recently flew to 7,500 feet at 204 mph and has been spotted making flights in Afghanistan as well as test flights at Edwards AFB.

    “The first flight moves us farther into the next phase of unmanned aircraft,” said Craig Brown, Phantom Ray program manager for Boeing. “Autonomous, fighter-sized unmanned aircraft are real, and the UAS bar has been raised. Now I’m eager to see how high that bar will go.”

    Considering the power of our current drone air force, this one can only mean we are one step closer to a Skynet-like autonomous defense system.

    via DefenseTech