The Brits have broken a UAV endurance record for unmanned flight:
An international governing board for aeronautic records has confirmed that a solar-powered drone shattered a long-standing endurance record by flying continuously for 14 days last summer.
Built by British defense contractor QinetiQ, the drone remained airborne 336 hour, 22 minutes, crushing the previous endurance record for a robotic plane, which was held by Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Global Hawk drone. That unmanned flight, which took place in March 2001, lasted 30 hours, 24 minutes.
The QinetiQ drone, dubbed Zephyr, flew from July 9 to July 23 over the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.
The challenge to building such a device is to make it lightweight enough to require minimal power to maintain station, has sufficient battery power to climb to target altitude while carrying a useful payload: If you can get a UAV up to 70,000 feet or so, you mostly escape the effects of wind and weather.
Looks like a fragile little thing, dunshe?
Looks like the sort of classic free-flight models I used to build as a kid.
May be fragile, but compared to the JSF, also cheap.
So how much payload capacity do you need to do some really useful persistent photo recon with a satellite uplink these days? I’d think it would only need enough speed to fly against the jet stream at that altitude, and it could become a truly stationary platform.
Yup, polyhedral is purty. Ah, the smell of dope and glow fuel! (and rubber lube!)
Basically a big indoor model, it is. But the real challenge (being solar-powered) is to get it high enough in the daytime so as not to come all the way down in the nighttime.
More than people appreciate. The sensor and comms suite on a Global Hawk run 3,000 lbs.
Wow! Why so high? If I can upload and download to satellites from a laptop weighing less than 10 lbs, do the comms need to be much more?
And if the 4080×3072 pixel camera on my digital microscope weighs only 1 lb, what major components are left but the lens?
You won’t see much from 70K’ (13 or so miles straight up) without a serious camera, which means weight unfortunately.
One potentially critical use of the UAVs will be as poor man’s comms satellites.
Let me walk you through it…
First, you’ll want a camera that can produce good imagery not only from 12 miles up, but 20+ miles to the side. Overflying people is not always an option. That sort of optics gets heavy. Especially when you want both infrared and visible light capability.
Then, you’ll want a radar, to use when there is cloud cover. Not to mention that a high-resolution radar can show things not That, too, gets heavy.
And you’ll want a satellite communications suite capable of handling very high bandwidth. Multiple megabits per second data rates. Plus secondary links for backup, etc.
I’ll put it this way…the USAF has openly stated that 50% of all imagery used to support OIF came from a Global Hawk. Specifically, tail number 98-2003. It was the only RQ-4 in theater. You don’t get that sort of performance with consumer-grade electronics.
Most of the weight of the optics system is in the gimbel.
Photo recon is a useful activity. If it can do it without RADAR detection so much the better. Just hope nothing goes wrong and it goes down over the target territory.
Global Hawk, however, is more than just a photo recon bird, which is why it’s sensor suite weighs so much.
Speaking of fragile, those Christmas ornaments mounted on the Hornet in the banner picture look like they wouldn’t survive the launch.
Daryle, me sir, that Hornet need only get under the mistletoe to the right, where the Irish lass awaits, as Lex goes softly into the night.
He He. I hadn’t noticed her. Hadn’t noticed the skitching Santa, either.
Here’s another view.
Looks like just the thing for the new British navy! All you need is 5 Brits and about 15 yards on a gun turret.
“TECH LUST”????? I am not so sure…..craft looks kinda like the Balsa wood planes I would build back in the day…..hope it has a better outcome than the ones I piloted…..they never ended their flights looking as pretty as when they took flight….
See, there’s your problem: “I piloted.” Free-flight models don’t need no stinking pilots.
Yes….sorry for my taking literary license….I meant “launched”…..damn, it’s a rough crowd….
Aspies are notorious for such
Hey, I saw that!
Where do you attach the JDAM?
It IS the JDAM!
I’m not sure cuts and abrasions are gonna get the job done.
I am particular impressed with the launch system though.
Looking at the pic: Single spar, almost flat-bottom very thin airfoil, I betcha the l.e. is quite sharp. Lotsa dihedral and small fin; it’s a small-Reynolds-number free-flight all right. I don’t see much room in there for lots of batteries. I’d like to see a dimensioned 3-view drawing, with weights, and bill of materials, etc.
It is an art project, and I congratulate them on getting somebody else to pay for it.
Hey, the Apollo Program was an art project, and I still think that’s the coolest thing humans ever did!
P.s. Note that they appear to be launching it around dawn, in what is probably a dead calm. The thing prolly stalls at the speed of a fast walk, and the slightest gust would roll it up into a wad of sticks and plastic-wrap on the ground.
P.p.s. This is why, parenthetically speaking, hang gliding is a mug’s game and hardly anybody does it anymore.
In order to fly slowly enough to land and take off from yer footsies, you have to fly slowly and lightly-loaded enough to get tossed end-over-end, if the wind decides to pitch a gust at you at the optimum bad time.
Dammit! I try to make some technical observations here, about a subject with which I have some actual (years of) experience, and all people write about is silly social stuff! What is this? Livejournal?
All else aside, doesn’t this picture look like a photoshop???
NO! Yer a kid, aren’t you? Haven’t been outdoors in years?
Contrast the QinetiQ gossamer thingy to this Global Hawk:
http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/ghrq4b/assets/RQ4_Block20_GlobalHawk_Cutaway.pdf
Or BAMS: http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/bams/assets/FI_BAMS_Cutaway.pdf
An upgrade of this 1930′s design, similar to what my Pa (LTC D) and I built in the 70′s. Granted, he did build them back when the design was new. http://www.bmjrmodels.com/images/big/spacerod.jpg
Looks like one of Sal Taibi’s designs. It’s very like a Starduster.
I was thinking Carl Goldberg, but you get the idea.
I actually met Carl Goldberg, once, and got his autograph (after having built and flown several of his designs). Sadly, he, like Isaac Asimov, died from an HIV-tainted blood transfusion.
I saw “solar powered drone” and thought this would be about the Profit AlGore