Solar plane smashes records with two-week flight

Jul 23, 2010, 21:38 GMT

Los Angeles - The age of the 'eternal plane' is at hand.

An unmanned solar airplane named the Zephyr completed more than two weeks of non-stop flight Friday above the US Army range in Yuma, Arizona, the craft's British developer Qinetic said.

The company said the innovative plane's controllers commanded it to touch done after it had smashed all endurance records for an unpiloted vehicle and had nothing left to prove.

But don't expect to take a round-the-world flight on the Zephyr anytime soon. The carbon-fibre plane weighs just 50 kilogrammes and has a total wingspan of 22.5 metres.

The wings are covered with paper-thin solar modules that power the plane's two propellers. The plane uses a lightweight array of rechargeable lithium sulphur batteries to stay aloft at night.

Zephyr's designer envisaged the plane being used where persistence in the air above a specific location is vital. It could be used to provide communications and mobile phone reception, especially above disaster areas, could replace expensive satellites, and has myriad potential military uses where its endurance could provide commanders with an almost permanent eye in the sky.

'We've now proved that this amazing aircraft is capable of providing a cost effective, persistent surveillance and communications capability measured in terms of weeks, if not months,' said Qinetic managing director Neville Salkeld in a statement. 'Not only is Zephyr game-changing technology, it is also significantly more cost effective to manufacture and deploy than traditional aircraft and satellites.'

Controlled from the ground by a team of operators the plane flew at an average speed of just 30 kilometres per hour at a height of some 18 kilometres during its two-week mission. Though it lost a little height every night during battery-powered flight it quickly regained altitude when the sun came up.

Prior to the Zephyr's record-breaking flight of 14 days and 24 minutes, the world record for the longest flight for an unmanned air system was set at 30 hours, 24 minutes by Northrop Grumman's RQ-4A Global Hawk in 2001.

The record for a non-stop piloted flight without refueling was nine days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds set by the Rutan Voyager's round- the-world flight in December 1986.