Solar aircraft demolishes unmanned flight record

A new, ultralight aircraft made from carbon fiber has beaten the standing world record for longest unmanned flight, according to its manufacturer. It has a 60-foot (18-meter) wingspan, weighs 66 pounds (30 kilograms) and is launched by hand. Snip from National Geographic report:

The Zephyr High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) stayed aloft for 54 hours during a recent test flight at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, says London-based defense firm QinetiQ.

No observers from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) were on hand, so the flight may not officially break the previous record of 30 hours, 24 minutes, 1 second set by Northrop Grumman's RQ-4A "Global Hawk" on March 21, 2001.

But the FAI is currently reviewing a second test flight of the Zephyr that lasted 33 hours, 43 minutes.

Link. Image: National Geographic. (thanks, John Parres!)

[#1 posted by Brandon Thomson , September 15, 2007 2:57 PM]

These advances are always neat to see. We are rapidly approaching the time when satellites can be augmented by cheap UAVs that just stay in the air all the time.

[#2 posted by Anonymous , September 16, 2007 8:51 AM]

This is pretty cool, but nobody seems to remember that back in 2003, Maynard Hill flew an autonomous aircraft across the Atlantic. It flew for over 37 hours and was only under radio control for takeoff and landing. He did it all on his own nickel. At the time, I kept reading press reports about an RAF effort to fly unmanned aircraft across the pond, but I stopped hearing about them after Maynard's flight. I guess if it's not part of a government program, it get's lost pretty quickly.