White Sands, NM—
High above the U.S. Military's vast White Sands Missile Range, an impossibly fragile-looking aircraft called Zephyr, built by the British defense contractor QinetiQ, may have set a new record for the longest-duration unmanned flight—or perhaps not. Because there was no attending representative of the official governing body for aviation-related world records, the Swiss-based Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the dart-like Zephyr's accomplishment may not fly into the record books after all. Get the fully skinny after the jump—including more pictures.
Weighing in at a mere 66 pounds and launched into the desert sky by hand, the Zephyr High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
(UAV), intended as a research platform for high-altitude surveillance aircraft, stayed aloft for 54 hours and soared to 58,355
feet—sufficient to shatter the current official record of 30 hours and
24 minutes, set by the Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk in March of 2001. By day, the Zephyr uses a broad expanse of paper-thin photovoltaic cells to spin its two electric-motor-driven propellers; by night, a bank of lithium-sulphur batteries provides the juice.
The 66-pound QinetiQ Zephyr UAV is launched by hand at White Sands, New Mexico.
The current record-holder for longest-duration unmanned flight, Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk.
From QinetiQ, read the release.
Photos courtesy of QinetiQ and Northrop Grumman.
