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NASA's 10-engine electric UAV now flies as well as it hovers
NASA's ten-engine UAV, dubbed the Greased Lightning (GL-10), recently showed off a slick new trick in the skies over Hampton, Virginia. The drone, which is under development by a team at the Langley Research Center, had already passed its initial hovering tests last August; but that was the easy part. As the long and miserable development of the V-22 Osprey has shown, the real challenge is switching over from hover mode to conventional forward flight without the vehicle falling out of the sky. But on Thursday, NASA's battery-powered tilt-rotor aircraft successfully did just that.
The Big Picture: NASA's electric plane achieves vertical takeoff
While EVs like the Tesla Model S and Renovo Coupe gain steam here on the ground, engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center are taking electric propulsion technology to new heights. What you see above is the GL-10 -- AKA Greased Lightning. This serious looking unmanned aerial system has a 10-foot wingspan and is powered by 10 individual electric motors with enough torque to propel it straight up in the air like a Harrier Jet. The GL-10 is nowhere near the size or weight of a Boeing V-22 Osprey, but that sort of maneuver is nonetheless impressive for a battery-powered machine.
