Quest is on for UAVs that stay up for years

[unhappycamper]

The Zephyr, a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle built by QinetiQ, recently flew for three and half days, breaking the world record for longest unmanned flight.


Quest is on for UAVs that stay up for years
By Jim Hodges - Special to the Times
Posted : Monday Sep 15, 2008 6:10:06 EDT

When a solar-powered Zephyr unmanned aerial vehicle, made by the British firm QinetiQ, completed a flight over Arizona July 28 that lasted three and a half days, it not only made history but also gave credibility to a quest by a number of companies and agencies to develop ultralong-endurance drones for reconnaissance or communications relay.

No longer does the idea of a UAV flying at altitudes as high as 90,000 feet for five continuous years sound like science fiction. But it’s only recently that such a notion has been taken seriously.

Derek Bye, who designs airplanes for Lockheed Martin, remembers the titter that ran through the audience when the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency held an industry day in Arlington, Va., to announce Vulture, an unmanned plane that would fly for five years carrying a half-ton of payload and drawing just 5 kilowatts of power.

But such a thing wasn’t completely out of the blue. Seven years earlier, a strange-looking, unmanned solar-powered plane called Helios set an altitude record for propeller-driven craft of 96,863 feet. The Helios flying wing eventually broke apart off Hawaii, but U.S. defense officials saw potential in the idea.

So DARPA hatched the Vulture program. In April, the agency awarded $4 million design contracts to Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and to the specialty-UAV company Aurora Flight Sciences. They will study competing Vulture designs under an initial 12-month analytical effort.



Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/09/airforce_5year_uavs_091408/%2e

[Warren Stupidity]

1. So they can kill us quietly from the air

with a network of hellfire missile armed drones patrolling the planet.

[BearSquirrel2]

2. Parents rejoice !!!

Parents rejoice!!! There is finally a direct career path for addicted video game players. Of course, they'll have to get through Air Force boot camp first so maybe you'll want to schedule some excercise time in. Maybe get Karate lessons or something.

[Crowman1979]

3. One problem with that! They'll lose more planes than even the shittiest pilot ever would.

I say keep the actual pilots and just use unmanned small unmanned aircraft, balloons and helos in order to develop a 3D real-time reconnaissance. So that the higher ups can get a realistic and magnified holographic table map in order to get a handle on the overall strategy for a particular observation. It would be a high tech version of the WW2 style war room, with the maps, models and charts, but with less admin.

Obsessed video game players would melt in the open sunlight. Don't get me wrong I play them, but if it doesn't make me a better at board, card and puzzle games; or involves using more than one button and a joystick then forget about it!