HALE plane set to fly for months at 60,000 feet
QinetiQ has been awarded a contract to build a solar-electric unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that will be able to fly for months at a time at an altitude of 60,000 feet. The HALE (high altitude long endurance) plane will be built upon a Verhaert system called Mercator, which has a wingspan of 16 metres and weighs 27 kilograms. Trials are set to start sometime around the middle of next year.
[Via The Inquirer]