

A plane flying non-stop for five years - gongfudoi
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/03/03/221956/darpa-pushes-limits-of-unmanned-aircraft-capability-to-extremes.html

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mleonhard
The business applications of such aircraft will be far more valuable than the
military applications.

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Electro
If you could mount a powerful cell phone repeater it would be more valuable
than an Aerostat as whenever a cell tower is taken down, you simply need to
fly one or more over an area to cover it.

They might even be a cheaper more efficient way of covering densely populated
areas than paying exorbitant land fees and the constant battle to get them
placed. I really don't see how a plane that can fly for 5 years wouldn't
benefit the Cellular industry.

It would also help wildlife studies. I mean simply program one to follow a
high density of radio transmitters, and tag as many birds as humanly possible
before they migrate and then you've got perminant tracking and monitoring of
the birds flight positions. The plane could be equipped to transmit the
locations through a satellite telephone link or other such device.

I'm sure there are thousands of uses. Terrain mapping, you just strap a camera
to the bottom and GPS and you could have it build up a high detailed map of an
area. I mean it would be a lot more useful for any industry that requires land
surveys as getting a high detailed map with a wide angled lense would allow
you to build up a topological map.

Hell you might even be able to spot useful resources, or really anything
visible from altitude. Police could use it to find recent graves with infrared
and optical sensors and it'd be cheaper and faster in open areas than using
people.

As I write this I realise the list is literally nearly endless, so I think
I'll save myself the time and STFU now before I get carpel tunnel!

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cstejerean
The possibilities are endless, but not all the scenarios you describe require
planes that can stay in flight for 5 years. For a lot of the scenarios you
describe it would suffice to have a fleet of planes that take off, fly, land,
resupply and take off again completely autonomously.

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marvin
Okay, I was going to deride this (60000+ feet for a 7 horsepower propeller
aircraft seems _ludicrous_ , a typical 200 horsepower light propeller aircraft
can't climb above 16000 feet, and the thin air increases required propeller
RPM as you climb). However, it seems that Boeing has already managed to send a
solar-powered ROV to 67500 feet. Admittedly only for a few minutes, but it
doesn't any longer seem like such a stretch.

Amazing what concepts a huge budget and no requirement to satisfy the public
market can give you. I wish I could work on something like this...

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joshwa
s/^(.*)$/\1\?/

