Boeing Co. could take some orders away from rival Lockheed Martin Corp. if the No. 2 defense contractor's robotic, pilotless X-45 strike aircraft works, the New York Times reported.
Boeing which lost to No.1 Lockheed in the race for a 200 billion Joint Strike Fighter contract, plans to build and operate the X-45 at one-third the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the paper said. The first test flight of the robotic fighter will be conducted over Southern California later this year.
The market for unmanned aer5ial vehicles of UAV's will be worth almost $5 Billion by 2005, the paper said, citing Frost&Sullivan a San Antonio research group. Michael Heiz, head of Boeing's Unmanned Systems unit, and other industry executives predict that the annual market will reach $10 billion by the end of the decade, the paper said. (Bloomberg)