Skid Waler drone
Sky dealer
A solar -powered surveillance drone with more wings from the Boeing 747 Jumbo jet can fly for weeks or months at a time, according to its operator, while searching for drug trafficking ships, pirates or naval warships. This month, the US is making tests of tests off the Gulf coast.
Sky dealer drone, operated by the US Spanish firm Sky Waler Aero, has 72 meters of wings-most commercial passenger jets are more than the width of aircraft. But it weighs only 2500kg-as the Ford F-150 truck. It is based on 2 solar powered aircraft, which in 2016 made the first solar powered flight worldwide. Sky developer Aero is able to build a similar solar powered, carbon fiber drone fleet during the day, which is capable of “flying forever”.
Sky dealer drone made the world’s first unmanaged and autonomous flight of solar powered planes in April 2024. It also made additional test flights this year, which lasted for more than 22 hours, supporting US military funding to assess its appropriateness for marine drone patrols.
Recently, a solar -powered drone made its longest flight after leaving Mississippi’s International Airport on July 20. According to the Flighter 24 Flight Tracking Service, it was airing on the Gulf coast for more than three days before landing on July 23. The service shows that the drone also flown for more than 18 hours earlier this month for more than 18 hours.
The wing of Sky Walar drone is doubled from Spain’s largest surveillance drone, such as the Nortrop Groom Main RQ4 Global Hawk used by the US Air Force, and its 400kg away can lift most of the solar -powered drones. And recently, French Aerospace Company Thales helped Sky Develer drone equipped with air -driven surveillance radar.
Arthur Holland Michelle, a research partner at the Norwegian Peace Research Institute Oslo, says, but decades -long struggle to commercial solar -powered drones has been the story of high hopes and amazing failures. Both Google and Facebook tried to produce solar powered drones to provide internet service before leaving their efforts. Michelle says aerospace company Airbus has also invested a lot in its small Zeffer solar electric drone, but Michelle says “there is no special return yet”.
“Militants have been supporting solar drone demo flights for more than a decade, but no one has acquired technology for a record program,” Michelle says. “Solar drones are impressive, and they have a lot of meaning in theory, but it is not immediately clear whether practically there is a sustainable business issue for them.”
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