Liquid Hydrogen UAV

From the same company that brought you the Wasp MAV, Aerovironment announced yesterday that they have successfully completed the world's first liquid hydrogen powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flight tests. From the press release: " AeroVironment's Global Observer High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) platform will be able to operate at 65,000 feet for over a week with a flexible payload-carrying capacity of up to 1,000 pounds." Applications include government and military surveillance operations, communication relays, and the potential for persistent real-time imagery of wildfires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. More pictures here.

Comments

Way cool

[StingRay2k01]

But kind of bomb can it carry? :P

UAV nogo Iraq

[Mulletproof]

Obviously we've already forgotten that one of the conditions to allowing UN inspections of Iraq was that no reconnissance overflights would be permitted. Period. We had them slated, but in order to give Iraq the maximum benefit of the doubt, we aquiesed on that issue. Somehow, I don't think these UAVs would have made the cut either, y'know?

And let's not try so hard to not inject political bias so obviously into cool tech stories, kk?