Eco Factor: Unmanned aircraft powered by solar energy.
Aurora Flight Sciences has announced that the company successfully flew their latest solar powered UAV, the SunLight Eagle. The flights took place at the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Test Center operated by the Physical Science Laboratory of New Mexico State University. The news came just days after the company announced the successful completion of a solar aircraft from DARPA’s Vulture Program.
The SunLight Eagle has a wingspan of 114 feet and weighs only 165 pounds at liftoff. The company stated that the aircraft has successfully accomplished all of its initial test objects that include data collection of the aircraft’s aerodynamic performance, to determine the impact of the solar cells and the second was to prove that it is possible to fly large solar-powered aircrafts inside the National Airspace System.
The Sunlight Eagle is a derivative of an earlier human-powered aircraft, the MIT Light Eagle. That airplane served as the prototype for the Daedalus human-powered aircraft. The Light Eagle still holds four world records for human-powered flight and the Daedalus holds two.
Via: FlightGlobal
