QinetiQ's Zephyr sets another unmanned solar plane flight record

QinetiQ just (unofficially) smashed the record for an unmanned flight by a solar airplane, sending its Zephyr craft into the air for a staggering 83 hours and 37 minutes, more than double the official record by "Global Hawk" in 2001, and a good margin more than its last flight. The plane was guided by autopilot and satellites to a height of 60,000 feet, and powers off the sun during the day, prepping its rechargeable lithium-sulphur batteries for the night. Zephyr is being built for reconnaissance, communications and unofficially setting really bad-ass flight records.

[Via USA TODAY]

[HUNG @ Aug 25th 2008 9:35AM]

say good bye to middle east's black gold, (atleast until the government put this tech in front line to improve, arrgghh)

[Kamokazi @ Aug 25th 2008 10:26AM]

We're a looooong way off from that. That thing is 73 pounds. I don't have enough time or expertise to do the math, but to get a commercial airliner to do that, I'd guess you'd have to probably make the wingspan at least 4-5x longer, probably a lot more.

[HUNG @ Aug 25th 2008 10:38AM]

that is the sad part of progress, it never seems to be fast enough.

[kjb434 @ Aug 25th 2008 10:56AM]

Do you really think the Mid-East is the only land of Black Gold? The US, Canada, and Russia all have more oil than the Mid-East individually.

Canada and Russia's primary economic income is oil.....We get the most of our oil from Canada anyway....

With so much in the world, why change it now. Keep researching new technology while we work to exhaust the old one.

[HUNG @ Aug 25th 2008 11:39AM]

but it is also under the influence of the ME that the prices change, is it not?

[Jash Sayani @ Aug 25th 2008 9:42AM]

83 hours !!! Nice :)

[TIB @ Aug 25th 2008 1:06PM]

Yeah.. very cool indeed. Even better will be its big brother, able to stay aloft for 5 years! (the little guy could probably do that too if the Li-S batteries could handle the cycle-life).

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Aug 25th 2008 9:47AM]

God bless we brits. Not only are we celebrating best olympics since 1920 but we are also holding the record for the longest flight by a unmanned aircfraft.

[Big Al @ Aug 25th 2008 10:23AM]

The plane itself is awesome enough. Watching 3 geeks trying to catch it makes it that much better.

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Aug 25th 2008 10:26AM]

They were launching retard.

[Eduardo @ Aug 25th 2008 10:34AM]

Now comes the hard part, landing it.
Next time think about adding some wheels.

[Rehehelly @ Aug 25th 2008 1:28PM]

If you've seen the video of it, it can move pretty slowly and it's bloody light.
Just catch it.

[rsmith @ Aug 25th 2008 11:04AM]

I wonder what the flight time will be once all of that power consuming heavy equipment is added on?

[tha-don @ Aug 25th 2008 3:54PM]

well, the beauty of it is that you don't have to add it all to one. you can send up three of these guys n have them work together, each with their own piece of equipment. plus, you don't usually need to run all the equipment for 83 hours straight so it would only be drawing the power for parts of the mission. you can add a useful camera and everything you need to run it for only a couple pounds. then have it transmit the video to another plane which has the equipment to transmit the video feed long distances (or somethin like that).

[NoAndThen @ Aug 25th 2008 11:45AM]

If you actually read about it, it wasn't an 'official' record, as the (i don't recall the name) group that oversees records and all that crap wasn't actually a part of it.

The makers stated that they "were more concerned about the flight than the record."

Just for the record...

[getStringFromObj() @ Aug 25th 2008 11:51AM]

"Its more than three-day flight began on July 28 and was witnessed by U.S. and British defense officials" I would love to have a job where I could just sit around and witness non events like this on government pay. In the movies, they have two guys in a building in the middle of the arctic and their job is to watch buoys for ocean temp changes. I always wonder why those guys aren't using crossloop in Hawaii with a broadband connection?

[JAx2000 @ Aug 25th 2008 11:56AM]

Gotta love the "Little Boys with Model Plane" feel of the image. Aren't we all just kids at heart, at least those of us lucky enough to find jobs that let us be.

[joseph @ Aug 25th 2008 12:29PM]

Solar Thermal and Solar Water heater can save 30-50% from your electric bill easily paying for themselves within 5 years.

Buy solar power and solar thermal systems for a greener life!



Joseph

[phanbouy @ Aug 25th 2008 12:35PM]

i hate teh soalar, only use teh nukular

[drg40 @ Aug 25th 2008 1:44PM]

"but it is also under the influence of the ME that the prices change, is it not?"

I thought this time it was a swiss Co which was speculating through third parties via oil against the US economy. Aren't one of the Fed agencies investigating their conduct?

AIR the name "Vitol" was connected with this enormous third hand speculation.

Personally I would have thought that somewhere there has to be an humungous class action against them. That I would like to see.

[TIMMAH! @ Aug 25th 2008 9:16PM]

So why wasn't it a longer flight? Did it finally run into a cloud patch that prevented it from fully charging or something?