Solar Plane Breaks Endurance Record

calmond writes with this excellent snippet from CNET News: "QinetiQ Group PLC claimed Sunday that its propeller-driven aircraft called Zephyr flew for 83 hours and 37 minutes non stop, more than doubling the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk in 2001. The Zephyr is much different from the Global Hawk, which is about the size of a fighter and requires runway for taking off and landing. Zephyr, on the other hand, is an ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber aircraft that weighs less than 70lbs and is designed to launch by hand. The little aircraft flies on solar power generated by amorphous silicon arrays covering the aircraft's paper-thin wings. It is powered day and night by rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries that are recharged during the day using solar power."

The record is only for unmanned aircraft.

Manned aircraft still have that record beat. Humm several days in an airplane... What fun.

...and this isn't a new one...

from the article:

the Zephyr's reported flight times didn't meet all criteria laid down by The World Air Sports Federation -- the governing body for air sports and aeronautical world records -- and will probably remain unofficial.

If I get to set my own rules, I can break records, too.

Re:...and this isn't a new one...

If I get to set my own rules, I can break records, too.

Maybe. That doesn't mean their record isn't legitimate, especially if the "rule" they disregarded was irrelevant, and especially since they have flown further than anybody else.

Re:...and this isn't a new one...

The "rule" they didn't follow was to have the relevant organisation in on the action. From the BBC:

[The record] remains "unofficial" because QinetiQ did not involve the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale), the world air sports federation, which sanctions all record attempts.

I think it's fair to say that regardless of who officiates it, they have broken the record.

Re:Nope.

I don't want to get into a big thing here, but if this unmanned aircraft flew for longer than any other unmanned aircraft, it has broken the record. The FAI may deem themselves the ultimate authority on these things, but in my books their lack of involvement doesn't automatically mean a record hasn't been broken.

I suppose you might question the authenticity of the tests, but given who these people are (and indeed who they work for [e.g. US military]), I think the results can be trusted.

Verification

Don't confuse a "feat" with a "record". Feats are what people do. Records are feats that can be proven to have happened. If an achievement is not properly documented, there's no way to know for sure whether it was done.

So it's not whether or not the feat was surpassed, it's whether the feat was surpassed in a way that can be verified. I can say to you that I've got a cure for cancer, or tell you that I can run 30 MPH barefoot, but neither claim means anything there's some verification of the process - some official body (EG: the American Medical Association in the United States) has performed testing to some standard process to verify that the cancer cure I claim actually works at least most of the time. (In medicine, almost nothing works 100% of the time, not even aspirin [drugtext.org])

You and I have no particular doubt that they flew the time they're claiming. But if it has not passed the most widely recognized process for validating this record, the RECORD still stands, and will stand until the proper process has been followed to record the fact that the old record has been broken.

However, they have a plan, which entails aircraft like this flying for MONTHS ON END. So they probably don't much care about documenting the record, since their numbers are likely to improve dramatically over the next year or so. Why go through the effort of documenting what is, for them, a rather minor, incremental step, solely to prove a record?

Re:The record is only for unmanned aircraft.

The record for longest manned flight is 64 days.

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/long219.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/11/98/great_balloon_challenge/299568.stm

Cessna out of Nevada flew for 64 days, 22 hours, covering the equivalent of 6 circumferences of the earth. In flight refueling, and they dropped down to just above ground level to pick up supplies from a chase car.

Re:The record is only for unmanned aircraft.

The record for longest manned flight is 64 days.
[chop]
Cessna out of Nevada flew for 64 days, 22 hours, covering the equivalent of 6 circumferences of the earth. In flight refueling, and they dropped down to just above ground level to pick up supplies from a chase car.

Valeri Polyakov did a 437 day flight, with a flight distance covering more than 7 thousand times the circumference of the earth.

Of course, his flight being disregarded isn't surprising, him not being an American.
Consider:

Eilmer of Malmesbury, who flew 220 yards in a glider in the 11th century
Lagari Celebi, who flew an unspecified distance with a rocket in 1633 (well documented!)
Henri Giffard, who flew 16 miles in a powered airship in 1852
George Cayley, who flew a mile in a controlled glider in 1853
John Stringfellow, who flew several dozen feet in a powered monoplane in 1868
Clement Adler, who flew 60 yards in a powered monoplane in 1890, and 320 yards in 1987
Richard Pearse, who flew over 1000 yards, including a controlled turn, in May 1903
Orville Wright, who flew 120 yards in a powered but wind-aided biplane in December 1903
Wilbur Wright, who flew 190 yards in a powered but wind-aided biplane in December 1903

Who gets honoured with having made the first flight? The Americans, of course! The "rules" have been rewritten several times after the fact to include the Wrights and exclude others.

So I guess that the rules for flight now specifically excludes orbital flights in order to disqualify MIR. Eppur si vola.

Re:The record is only for unmanned aircraft.

The Wrights published their flights and marketed their airplanes. They developed them into a successful business.

Pearse worked in obscurity.

Flights of Adler's steam powered airplanes were not well-publicized and the French government kept results of the 1897 flight secret for a while.

Consequently, the momentum of publicity has kept the Wright's name in the forefront. I do not intend to diminish the accomplishments of Adler and Pearse.

_ It's only reasonable to exclude "flights" outside the atmosphere, otherwise we'll have to make special rules to exclude the moon and man-made satellites from consideration. If you aren't continuously using the atmosphere for aerodynamic lift, you're not flying.

Re:The record is only for unmanned aircraft.

>

So I guess that the rules for flight now specifically excludes orbital flights in order to disqualify MIR. Eppur si vola.

"Orbital flight" would be a misnomer at best. An object in orbit isn't "flying", it's falling.

And no, I don't think that's nitpicking. Once you're in orbit, it's not much of a feat to remain there, supply logistics notwithstanding.

Re:The record is only for unmanned aircraft.

The trick to flying is to fall, and then forget to hit the ground.

Re:The record is only for unmanned aircraft.

Is this informative because of its "anti-american" bend or because it has information? If its because of the provided "information" than the Moderators should actually check out these "factiods" before modding the post. For example:

"Valeri Polyakov did a 437 day flight, with a flight distance covering more than 7 thousand times the circumference of the earth.

Of course, his flight being disregarded isn't surprising, him not being an American."

Yeah... 437 day SPACE FLIGHT....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriy_Polyakov [wikipedia.org]

No one was talking about "manned space flight"... because in that case, no shit sherlock, 60 odd days isnt shit.

The Americans didnt "change the rules". The reason the above mentioned individuals werent given credit for the "discovery" of flight is because their inventions simply did not translate into successful reproducible air travel. I mean, those guys dont have anything on... BIRDS... that were flying long before man. Why were BIRDS given credit for the discovery of flight...

"So I guess that the rules for flight now specifically excludes orbital flights in order to disqualify MIR. Eppur si vola."

Yes sparky... RTFA... This is about UNMANNED SUB ORBITAL flight... because if you werent then you would have to talk about VOYAGER I and II... which are have been going for 30+ years and are unmanned and again... American. Oh snap...

BBC report with video is better

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7577493.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Sulfur is a relatively cheap material, so lithium-sulfur batteries have the potential to be less expensive than other battery types. With a lower starting cost to manufacturers, lithium-sulfur batteries could save consumers money. There is also a possible cost savings because lithium-sulfur batteries tend to provide much longer charges than lithium ion batteries. With double the lifetime or greater, you might be able to get by with a single lithium-sulfur battery for your laptop or rechargeable hand tool. Another reported advantage of lithium-sulfur batteries is their ability to work well in very cold weather. www.wisegeek.com

Qinetic not very upset at all

If my hunch is correct, then QinetiQ isn't very upset by not being listed as a world-record-breaker with this flight. Qinetic is a military contractor. Unless I'm completely mistaken, this plane being constructed with so much carbon fiber, wouldn't it have a very small (perhaps non-existent) radar signature? I'm sure it could carry a small payload, like reconnaisance cameras, for instance? All that plus no need to refuel, and I'd say that the military would be very interested in contracting QinetiQ to build a fleet of these for them. I'd also imagine that you could include a satellite uplink to the payload, and never have to even have the thing land in order to download it's recorded recon data.

What about the Condor UAV?

I think the claim to have beaten the Global Hawk by 2x is a bit misleading - it implies a doubling of existing capabilities. In fact, it only UNOFFICIALLY doubles an OFFICIAL record, which itself is not the longest flight recorded by any means. In 1989 a Boeing UAV named Condor flew over 58 hours, and had a design endurance of 80 hours. Okay, they never claimed it as an official record, but it was still a valid flight, just like this was.

Here's an interesting video:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/boeing-condor-uav/4285692709 [aol.com]

And some facts:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=7988 [af.mil]

Granted, the Zephyr is theoretically limited only by the service life of its electrical components - it could stay up until something broke or wore out. But please, let's use real facts here.

Re:Fly forever!

If it was that easy, they could just go to one of the poles where the sun never sets for half a year. Though I suppose the ambient temperature and low angle might be a letdown. On an equally unrealistic note, to travel with the sun at equator it'd have to do 40000km in 24 hours = 1667km/hour. Yes, we can make planes that fast OR planes that lightly glide using solar power but I'm pretty sure we won't get both at once.

Re:

Seems that the path is not that simple. If I start at daylight and travel to the pole it will be 1/4 circumference and it would be morning again on the other side. So more like 400kph?

Re:

Actually, it doesn't need to be daytime for it to operate, hence how it was able to stay airborne for 83 hours. It uses high capacity batteries to get through the night. [bbc.co.uk]

Re:Fly forever!

But it did come down, which means, some resource got drained... Which one? The batteries, which may have been only partially recharging during the day, is one possible explanation....

The first people to fly a solar-powered plane through the night, Tom Gage and his team at AC Propulsion, flew for 48 hours...and could have probably flown forever -- the resource that was drained was the on-ground pilots.

The plane was flown to use thermals as much as possible during the day, but it was tiring work.

Anyway, after two days, and with a battery charge higher than what they started at, they figured that they had made their point.

Re:Fly forever!

The plane was flown to use thermals as much as possible during the day, but it was tiring work.

Perhaps for military use it's desirable to fly that low, but another way to get a solar plane flying forever is to get it light enough and get the sink rate low enough (1 foot/second) that it can glide all night (100000 feet -> 40000 feet) and still be in the lower stratosphere by sunrise. That way you don't need batteries, and you'll always be above the clouds and weather.

A plane designed for this will be flimsy and fly extremely slowly near ground (slower than walking speed), so it'd have to be launched and retrieved during calm weather, but once up, there would be very little to go wrong - at most latitudes it could circle in one spot indefinitely.

Re:Interesting feat

Yea Goddard's liquid rocket was a waste of time. It only flew 40 feet and couldn't even carry a payload! The idea was nice, but it was nothing more than a child's toy.

Seriously though, it's a step towards making long term solar powered flight work. Creating aircraft able to keep flying indefinitely on solar power is not trivial. Once we can make it work though, then it's time to start scaling it up and sticking payloads on it.

A solar powered aircraft able to stay in the air for months or years at a time would be a hell of a lot cheaper than a satellite while being able to perform many of the same jobs.

Re:

These little planes might be useful in disaster situations, when ordinary comms are down. Wi-Fi capability has already been crammed into the SD card form factor. Seems likely that a very light weight Wi-Fi access point could be constructed as well. With that, how many of these planes would need to be launched to provide a communications network over an area wrecked by an earthquake or a flood?

Re:What is its purpose?

Nope. The whole thing was built only to be mentioned on Slashdot.

QinetiQ

QinetiQ CIA link [timesonline.co.uk]

QinetiQ, the British defence and security technology company that was spun out of the Ministry of Defenceâ(TM)s research laboratory, has appointed George Tenet, 53, former head of the CIA in America, a non-executive director. The company hopes to develop closer links with the US intelligence establishment.