"Phantom Ray flying wing"

Boeing will put its Phantom Ray flying wing into the air before the end of the year.

The aerospace giant says that the unmanned aerial vehicle, unveiled at Boeing's St. Louis facility on Monday, is on track to make its first flight in December. The Phantom Ray will be a testbed for unspecified "advanced technologies," and in a press release Monday, Boeing rattled off an array of potential missions for the aircraft, from the now standard UAV tasks of recon and surveillance to aerial refueling, electronic attack, and the menacingly vague "strike." (A separate Boeing feature on the Phantom Ray makes reference to a potential "hunter/killer" mission, which would put it in the same category as the MQ-9 Reaper already in use by the U.S. Air Force.)