Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Solar-Powered Flight For 81 Hours: a New Endurance World Record

Posted by timothy on from the so-use-amazon-prime dept.

Hallie Siegel writes: A team of researchers from ETH Zurich have just set a new endurance record for solar powered flight of an unmanned autonomous aircraft, achieving over four days of solar-powered flight in a range of weather conditions. Being able to demonstrate more than 24 hours of endurance is important because overcast skies can inhibit recharging and poor weather or high winds can effect power consumption. Nice achievement for this class of aircraft.

1 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Battery and solar panel technology advances by sexconker · · Score: 5, Informative

    This isn't big news for solar or batteries.

    Just 2316 km over 81.5 hours is more like floating than flying, and the main advance came from the reduction in mass, not improved solar/battery tech.
    It's 6.5 kg while the prior record holder was 13 kg. If you look at the thing, it's not much more than a really large wing.

    The records it took were for longest flight among aircraft under 50 kg and longest flight for low-altitude, it doesn't have the overall longest flight, nor longest unmanned flight.