Several improvements in technology over the past decade—including solar cells and more efficient engines—make these aircraft more of a reality than they have been in the past. "The aircraft have to be light and run extremely efficiently," Jacob says. "You can't run off of today's fuels for five years. Ideally, the aircraft would have solar cells that can alternately charge and operate while in flight."
The projects are complementary. "The Rapid Eye is for when you don't know where you want to be but you need to get there quickly," Pulliam says. "The Vulture is for when you want to be over an area for a long time."
It's unclear whether the Rapid Eye will be able to be retrieved after it is used; DARPA is leaving that question to the firms that submit designs for the plane. "We would prefer to be able to recover the aircraft," Pulliam says, "but the cost of the aircraft will not be such that it must be recovered."
U.K. defense firm QinetiQ claims to hold the record in keeping an unmanned aircraft aloft. In 2005 its Zephyr high-altitude, solar-powered vehicle stayed aloft continuously for 54 hours during a test flight. The previous unmanned endurance record was set in 2001 by a jet-powered U.S. Air Force Global Hawk surveillance aircraft, which flew for more than 30 hours. The Zephyr is a carbon-fiber aircraft weighing 66 pounds and with a wingspan of about 59 feet that by day flies on solar power generated by amorphous silicon arrays that cover its wings; it is powered at night by lithium-sulfur batteries recharged during the day using solar power.
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Add Commentinteresting article and I am in favor of using technology to gather objective intelligence, particularly in contrast to using torture to "get whatever information the torturer wants to hear".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a little dismayed that the DOD has fostered the naming of these projects with sinister acronyms, if acronym would be the correct term for the naming of VULTURE...seems like they've really stretched its application in order to acquire a particularly sexy name in an endeavor where sex=death. Back in WW2 American units were identified with some fierce totemic images: eagles, timberwolves, flying tigers, and pop culture images that were life affirming like pinup girls and cartoon characters, and it was the nazis who embraced the symbology of death, hate and destructio with images of skulls and other sinister imagery. Now the US is doing it to presumably intimidate its enemies but what it is unwittingly doing is alienating those who would be our allies if they didn't suspect our emblematic affinity with evil and death. Hve we become the culture we despise?