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August 24, 2008 11:40 AM PDT

QinetiQ's Zephyr breaks flight time record for unmanned aircraft

by Dong Ngo

The Zephyr aircraft flies purely by solar power.

(Credit: QinetiQ)

After 16 days, the Olympics concluded with 43 world records being broken. However, there's now another record that's no less exciting.

QinetiQ claimed Sunday that its propeller-driven aircraft called Zephyr flew for 83 hours and 37 minutes nonstop, 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 a runway for taking off and landing.

Zephyr, on the other hand, is an ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber aircraft that weighs less than 70 pounds 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's powered day and night by lithium sulfur batteries that are recharged during the day using solar power.

QinnetiQ claims that last year, Zephyr also managed to stay up in the air for 54 hours on another flight.

However, both 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.

Nonetheless, Zephyr's impressive fight time opens up a lot of potential for the aircraft the fields of earth observation and communications relay.

(Via Associated Press)

Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong.
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Add a Comment (Log in or register) (8 Comments)
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by whds2008 August 24, 2008 6:04 PM PDT
"Aircraft" is a collective noun. I usually don't comment on grammar, but if you can't even get a headline right, how am I supposed to believe what comes after it?
Reply to this comment
by dude7895 August 24, 2008 9:12 PM PDT
Guy, no one cares.
by mvbcdo August 25, 2008 5:30 AM PDT
What's wrong witht hem using a collective noun? They're not talking about a world record for one specific unmanned airplaine. They're saying that it has broken the record for all unmanned aircraft.

Becides, I'm not even sure that you're right about the word, that aircraft is a a collective noun. If I own a byplane am I not allowed to say "I onwe an aircraft." ?

Anyway, the real point is that they ARE speaking in collective terms.

Christopher D. Osborn
fipher.blogspot.com
by terminalblue August 24, 2008 7:33 PM PDT
to whds2008...
just shut up
Reply to this comment
by krisbrixon August 24, 2008 7:38 PM PDT
@whds2008
Aircraft is singular and plural, the usage is valid.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aircraft
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by Mac OS XP August 24, 2008 9:41 PM PDT
Cool! I was wondering when they'd put those modern light-weight materials and solar panels into a plain that could go on forever.
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by kumomichi August 25, 2008 2:13 AM PDT
Just in case whds2008 doesn't comment on grammar '...panels into a plain that ..' should be 'plane' as in aeroplane or you could use 'craft' as in aircraft...
by mrgardon August 25, 2008 5:53 AM PDT
Cool but more detail please. Length? Width? Battery size, solar panel size? Anyone looking to scale it up? Oh... how fast does it fly?
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