Aviation Energy Tech Lifting Off

August 25, 2008

First off, I'm a big UAV fan. While I'm not a total hawk, the whole idea of a young officer or enlisted person waking up in the Midwestern US, having a coffee, then going through security, checking in to work, and flying a joystick mission in the Mideast astounds me. The times they are a - changin.

There's also been a lot of buzz lately about how the airlines are failing because their business models can't accommodate jet fuel that comes from $125/barrel oil. And how the Air Force and other flying orgs are investigating synthetic fuels made out of coal and a variety of other odd substances.

So that's the context for a new record flight by a completely solar plane. A plane built by QinetiQ spent several days aloft with its biggest payload: the batteries required to keep it flying at night. As they say, you have to walk before you run, and this plane moves at the airplane equivalent of a leisurely stroll. But like the electric plane featured on Powrtalk just a few weeks ago demonstrates, there are a heck of a lot of walkers competing in a race to change aviation these days.

Photo courtesy of QinetiQ