Zephyr Solar Airplane Flying For Over 1 Week Now

[FSTargetDrone]

Unmanned, unlike the aircraft Broomstick posted recently, but, still!

Unmanned solar plane smashes records

By Matthew Knight, for CNN

July 16, 2010 2:48 p.m. EDT



London, England (CNN) -- A unmanned solar aircraft has smashed the world record for continuous flight.

The "Zephyr" plane, developed by UK defense technology company, QinetiQ, took off from the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona on Friday July 9. Seven days on, it is still flying high.

Zephyr program director, Jon Saltmarsh told CNN: "It's extremely exciting. What we now have is an eternal plane. It has the same amount of fuel at the start of one day as it does at the start of another."

The aircraft has already doubled its own unofficial record of over 82 hours and smashed the previous world record for unmanned flight of 30 hours and 24 minutes, set in 2001 by U.S. aerospace company, Northrop Grumman's RQ-4A Global I.

The Zephyr project was conceived in 2001 and secured funding from the UK's Ministry of Defense (MOD) three years later. After several prototypes, Saltmarsh believes QinetiQ has now created an aircraft that demonstrates genuine military utility.

"It has the persistence to stay up there for long periods of time and it carries payloads that are doing things that the military will find useful."

Saltmarsh says its key role will be in aiding communications.

"Sitting at 60,000 feet it's ideal for getting a line of sight between two people in different valleys," Saltmarsh said. "But it could also carry surveillance payloads."

QinetiQ also says it will save the military money, performing many of the tasks currently carried out by manned aircraft.

Weighing in at just 53 kilograms the plane has a wingspan of 22.5 meters and a wing area of around 30 square meters, the top side of which are covered in solar panels thinner than a sheet of paper.

The panels are rigged up to lithium-sulphur batteries which power the plane at night.

QinetiQ began building the latest Zephyr model 18 months ago and hope to start full scale military trials a year from now.

The company says that Zephyr will also find a civilian use helping communications in disaster relief situations, as well as forest fire monitoring.

"You can sit above a fire, with heat sensor technology and identify hotspots very quickly," Saltmarsh said.

Zephyr shows no sign of running out of power anytime soon, and Saltmarsh is hopeful it will stay in the air for another seven days, when the plane will finally return to Earth.

[Hawkwings]

Gah! Where are the tech specs?

I can't imagine this thing would carry more than 10kg of gear. Still, that should be enough for a communications package or a couple cameras.

[adam_grif]

Yes, the payload would be very interesting to know. That said, even with some lightweight recon gear, being able to operate independently of fuel supply lines is an extremely awesome thing.

[Stark]

Imagine! There might even be -non-military- applications!

[adam_grif]

Imagine! There might even be -non-military- applications!

I'm sure, but the article states it's built by a defense-tech company, so military applications were likely what it was designed for.

[Shroom Man 777]

Weather forecasting, maybe as some kind of aerial antenna (like those proposed stratellites), law enforcement? Agricultural whatsits? And for keeping damn dirty immigrants from crossing the border!

[Hawkwings]

I don't see this being terribly useful for weather forecasting. We have satellites for overhead views, and this isn't gonna go fly into storms anytime soon. Flying antenna is a good one, and ties directly into the potential military use. Basically, surveillance of any type.

[Alyeska]

I don't see this being terribly useful for weather forecasting. We have satellites for overhead views, and this isn't gonna go fly into storms anytime soon. Flying antenna is a good one, and ties directly into the potential military use. Basically, surveillance of any type.

Satellites are extremely expensive. This technology has the potential to be much cheaper.

[Stark]

Assuming it can stay up without mechanical failure for say, six months to a year, the possibilities for communication infrastructure are pretty awesome. Anyone who played scifi RP in the 80s knows all about how useful drones with unlimited endurance can be for all kinds of things.

[Sky Captain]

I'm wondering how resistant this plane would be to high altitude winds? Aircraft this large and with only few KW of power available can't be very fast, so if a wind exceeds the top speed of a plane it would get carried away with the wind.

[Beowulf]

I don't see this being terribly useful for weather forecasting. We have satellites for overhead views, and this isn't gonna go fly into storms anytime soon. Flying antenna is a good one, and ties directly into the potential military use. Basically, surveillance of any type.

Overhead views aren't the only bits of data a weather forecaster can use. In fact, it's only really useful for the short term forecast. Pressure, moisture and wind speed at different heights are perhaps even more useful than satellite, because you can feed that data into models and get back what the weather will be like in 18 hours.

Currently there are two ways to get that data: from pilots when they request a weather report, and from weather balloons (usually launched twice daily).

[Themightytom]

Hey if we build enough we can curb global warming...