Otto Aerospace recently introduced a full-scale mockup of its Phantom 3500 to the market. The news of its formal launch at the UP.Summit in Bentonville, Arkansas, dovetails with an order by Flexjet, the world’s second-largest fractional-share firm, for 300 aircraft. At the unveiling, Flexjet chairman Kenn Ricci said the Phantom 3500 marks “a bold step into a future where an aircraft’s efficiency and sustainability stand alongside speed, comfort, and range as defining standards.” The unusual, oblong Phantom is a clean-sheet twinjet design that looks like something out of a 1950s sci-fi movie. Its windows have been replaced by 72-inch digital screens, or what Otto calls SuperNatural Vision (SNV) technology, so passengers what passengers see come from cameras embedded along the exterior. These lightweight screens add to the smooth, streamlined design of the laminar-flow airframe, engineered to minimize drag and improve fuel efficiency. The aircraft’s raked wings, carbon-fiber construction and smaller engines also combine..
