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Robot Plane Makes Unaided U.S.-Australia Crossing

Posted by timothy on from the faked-just-like-the-moon-landings dept.

PenguinRadio writes: "Yahoo Australia is reporting an unmanned U.S. aircraft recently flew from the US to Australia, smashing an endurance record for remotely controlled aircraft. The Global Hawk reconnaissance jet arrived in Adelaide 14 minutes ahead of schedule after a non-stop flight of more than 23 hours. The Air Force has some pictures and more news on their site as well." Update: 04/24 7:26 AM by michael : This is a follow-up to our story a few days ago.

3 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Far better than last time... by KFury · · Score: 4

    You know the earlier attempt is still sitting in a hangar, waiting for its compliment of lemon-soaked napkins...

    Kevin Fox
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    Kevin Fox
  2. Remotely controlled? by cyberdonny · · Score: 3
    Not. As mentioned in numerous comments in the previous article about this plane, it is not remote controlled, but robotic, i.e. it has an onboard computer controlling the plane. The radio link is only used to update the mission plan, or to send back data, but not to fly the plane.

    Remote controlled planes have already existed for a long time (called drones), but have the disadvantage of not being radio-silent (have to permantently transmit back instruments reading, camera view, etc) to the base station, which makes them unfortunately easy to detect...

  3. Hrm.. by Liquid-Gecka · · Score: 3

    I wonder if Austrailia is going to refuse to give the plane back until we apologize for landing it in there country?