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Boeing Gets $89M To Build Drone That Can Fly For 5 Years Straight
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."
Most commercial air traffic flies between 29,000ft - 39,000ft. I think there are one or two private jets that are certified to fly as high as 52,000ft. At 60,000ft it's just military traffic.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
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
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.
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