Boeing Bird of Prey

The Boeing Bird of Prey is an American black project aircraft intended to demonstrate stealth technology, developed by McDonnell Douglas and Boeing in the 1990s. Development began in 1992 in the Phantom Works special projects division of McDonnell Douglas at Area 51, and Phantom Works became part of Boeing after the 1997 merger. The company provided 67 million dollars of funding, and the technology and materials it developed were later used on the Boeing X-45 unmanned combat air vehicle. Its first flight was in 1996, with 39 more flights before the program ended in 1999. As a demonstrator it used a commercial off-the-shelf turbofan engine and manual hydraulic controls instead of fly-by-wire. It was put on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force on 16 July 2003.