Proving the point
The radar-scanned images captured during that first flight test showed the California terrain clearly and in detail: stretches of dry land next to dense forest, mountains, lakes, islands off the coast. To Larry Martin, what mattered most was that PhantomStrike had worked as he had expected.
Martin is a senior technology fellow at Raytheon, an RTX business, and the technical lead for the PhantomStrike radar. Years ago, he and his team had set out to develop a system like nothing else on the market. Now it was airborne.
“It was the cherry on top to see it work,” Martin said.
Program teams, working on an accelerated schedule, had done the legwork to install the radar on Raytheon’s Multi-Program Testbed aircraft, a Boeing 727 modified to carry, integrate and test sensors and electro-optical/infrared systems.
“Once we were integrated on the plane, it was a big relief,” he said. “A lot of questions were answered on our initial flights.”
The result, he said, is a radar that is truly the first of its kind.