Photos: The blended-wing design of Boeing's X-48B

In May 2006, the X-48B demonstrator was still undergoing testing in the full-scale wind tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. The Boeing division responsible for the plane has a name straight out of a spy novel: Phantom Works. It's the aerospace giant's advanced R&D unit. The two subscale aircraft were built by U.K. company Cranfield Aerospace.

Photo by Boeing

Caption by Jonathan Skillings