Boeing Gets $89M To Build Drone That Can Fly For 5 Years Straight 271
coondoggie writes "One of the more unique unmanned aircraft concepts took a giant step toward reality this week when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency inked an agreement with Boeing to build the SolarEagle, a plane capable of remaining at heights above 60,000ft for over five years. Boeing says the first SolarEagle under the $89 million contract could fly as early as 2014."
Re:more unique (Score:1, Informative)
—Usage note
Many authors of usage guides, editors, teachers, and others feel strongly that such “absolute” words as complete, equal, perfect, and especially unique cannot be compared because of their “meaning”: a word that denotes an absolute condition cannot be described as denoting more or less than that absolute condition. However, all such words have undergone semantic development and are used in a number of senses, some of which can be compared by words like more, very, most, absolutely, somewhat, and totally and some of which cannot.
The earliest meanings of unique when it entered English around the beginning of the 17th century were “single, sole” and “having no equal.” By the mid-19th century unique had developed a wider meaning, “not typical, unusual,” and it is in this wider sense that it is compared: The foliage on the late-blooming plants is more unique than that on the earlier varieties. The comparison of so-called absolutes in senses that are not absolute is standard in all varieties of speech and writing.
See also a1, complete, perfect.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
400 foot wingspan, no unimproved airfields (Score:3, Informative)
Where the hell are you going to launch it from?
I mean seriously maybe they'll launch it from the US during the airwar and it'll finally get to the combat theater by time we've achieved air superiority.
I'd probably designed like a glider and to loiter for a long time by definition, would it just be easier to tow this thing like a glider to the theater of operations?
I really like the concept and all the Weather satellite type work, and cellular nodes or broadband that could use this kind of platform. Unlike the Solar powered plane that flew recently this thing will actually have a payload and energy budget that includes the cameras and comms gear.
Helios, Pathfinder, Paul MacCready, etc... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:2014? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:SEE! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:2014? (Score:3, Informative)
The maintenance issue is with internal combustion engines, these props will be spun by an electric motor.
Re:SEE! (Score:5, Informative)
is 60,000 feet high enough to avoid commercial airliner traffic?
60k and above is what is called class E airspace and the rules are very simple for class E: It's up to you not to run into anyone else. Except for the occasional SR71 and U2, nothing regularly flies at this altitude (some fighter aircraft can go this high if they have to but they don't just cruise around for the heck of it): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspace_class_(United_States)#Class_E [wikipedia.org]
PS - most commercial airliners aren't rated for even 40K, nevermind 60. At 60, you can see the curvature of the earth out the window so it would be really cool to actually get to take a flight that could handle it.
Re:batteries... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:batteries... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:batteries... (Score:3, Informative)
or, more accurately, when they are in the earth's shadow (not that common in high orbits, but regular for anything in LEO)
Re:SEE! (Score:3, Informative)
At 60,000ft it's just military traffic.
And damned little of that.
Currently in the US fleet only F15 F22 and F35 have announced service ceilings in excess of 60,000ft. (Some f15s can achieve 98,000ft (ballisticly).
The experimental Russian P-1, Sukhoi and Su 27, and perhaps a few others could operate up there.
But there is otherwise nothing up that high on a routine basis.
50,000 feet is easily within reach of missiles. So other than areas where there is already full air dominance, I would not expect to see these in combat situations. As a communications and surveillance platform it holds a lot of promise.
Re:2014? (Score:3, Informative)
Piston aircraft are *much* less reliable and have *much* lower time between overhauls than jets, because jets basically have a very small number of non-contact bearings, while piston aircraft have a quite large number of physically contacting bearings and sliding surfaces. Jet engines are much more expensive to build, but they last for tens of thousands of hours.
Jet engines are attractive to aircraft designers because they have high reliability, low vibration, have a much higher power-per-unit-weight and power-per-unit-volume, and are much less affected by the lack of air pressure at high altitude. They aren't as efficient as piston engines, and high bypass ratio jets, as seen on most transport jets, are not as efficient as turboprops. But their size, reliability, and power overcome the very slight efficiency loss.
It is possible you could run a turbofan with electric motors rather than a jet, but that would be somewhat pointless for this kind of design requirement.
Re:SEE! (Score:3, Informative)
At 60, you can see the curvature of the earth out the window so it would be really cool to actually get to take a flight that could handle it.
I'm sure at 60 you can see the curvature much more dramatically, but you can see the curvature just fine at 40k too. The view from the cockpit (back when children and such were -gasp- invited to see the cockpit) it was particularly apparent. These days you'd probably need to be on a private jet to get more than a port-hole view though.
Cite: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-47-34-H39 [opticsinfobase.org]
Re:SEE! (Score:4, Informative)
Service celling of a 777 is 43,000, same for A-380 and 787.
My cousin is an airline pilot, CRJs and now A-320s and they generally fly at 41,000
Re:SEE! (Score:1, Informative)
From your link - "In most areas of the United States, Class E airspace extends from 1,200 feet (370 m) AGL up to but not including 18,000 feet (5,500 m) MSL, the lower limit of Class A airspace."
There are no classes of airspace that match your definition from that link
Re:batteries... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SEE! (Score:3, Informative)
Your argument is an emotional grab (appeal to emotion fallacy). And is a fallacy of choice. Perhaps in some situations war is the only answer. But it is not the answer in the vast vast majority of situations.
Willing to bet any amount of money that civvie tech research has saved way more lives than war has (and thats IF you ignore the deaths war causes).
Re:Summary Fail (Score:3, Informative)
I fully agree with parent.
Each of you is unique... just like everyone else. But then there's Einstein...
So "more unique" is a distinct concept expressed succinctly to cover the Einsteinian cases. It is not logical-- it is in fact an oxymoron-- but it is used in the English language, not PHP, Perl, or any of our other logical languages. Any processor capable of properly parsing spoken English would have less difficulty with 'more unique" than with "there, their, they're". It is good English. Good English is not logical: it is used by entities that are not logical to communicate mostly irrational expressions between themselves. Generally for either arguing, boasting, or while trying to get into someone's pants.