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Sep 17, 2010

Boeing's New Spy Plane Will Fly For Five Years Straight

The SolarEagle is Boeing's winning design for an unmanned plane capable of continually flying for five years on reconnaissance and commutations missions above 65,000 feet. The solar-powered, propeller-driven UAV will begin test flights in 2014.

The Boeing UAV was the winning bid in a DARPA contest named Vulture II. It's another one of those peculiar projects with high ambitions designed to encourage the next level of technological development. With a goal of flying at stratospheric height for five years, Boeing's SolarEagle only has to achieve a demonstration flight of 30-to-90 days by 2014.

A product of the same Phantom Works lab behind the hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye, this slimmer eye-in-the-sky's actually propeller-driven and uses electric motors set into a "high-aspect-ratio" 400-foot wing designed to capture the sun's rays while providing little drag from the earth's atmosphere. With a 1,000-pound payload it won't be dropping bombs anytime soon, just helping the people who drop the bombs figure out where to put them.

41 comments:

Biff Tanner said...

That's a big sucker.

Savage Nugget said...

Really awesome invention. :D

ShredGuitar said...

Supportin!

Follow me bros.

MVTM said...

O.O

Nobody said...

Of course it's gotta be militarized first.

Skyshock said...

wow thats awesome

The Loon said...

Doesn't look like it can carry much. >_< Especially for spying. What's the megapixel on that camera?

Ipod reviews said...

epic blog op
definity followin this fo sure

lancerevil said...

Interesting!

remzi said...

Cool

`†he Պen†al Պasochis† said...

i betting money it doesnt go the whole five years, cool breakthrough tho

http://wordofdodd.blogspot.com/

The Anti Shitlord said...

lol 65000 feet, how much is that for us metric folks?

~Andrew Wilson said...

Showin my support for an awesome blog :D

Mantooth said...

Damn, five years? The 90 days test flight seems pretty insane to me, but five years?!!

sod_roger001 said...

but it doesnt look cool. aint no GI JOE

Ankiseth said...

That's mindblowing...5 years at 65k feet? I wonder if it'll actually make it the entire time.

Thanks for the info, and if you remember over the next few weeks, keep us posted on whether or not the 90 day run went successfully.

Tri Duong said...

good to hear

Nine said...

Wow? Flying for five years? I'll be surprised if it can go the whole time.

Viperman said...

Awesome!!!

Now if passenger planes were like this

Anonymous said...

thats crazy, be cool on call of duty :)

Anonymous said...

All I can think of is the inevitable, epic crash, and how much fun it would be to watch on YouTube. ^_^

Naj said...

that's one weird looking plane!

David Davidson said...

That's impressive. Though I wouldn't be surprised it was shot down or had technical problems. A lot can go wrong in 5 years and I doubt they can go up to fix it.

down2brasstax said...

woah that thing is amazing

Undertaker said...

I want to have one of those :P
Wait... no, that actually wouldn't have much use for me...
Anyway:
Come At Me Bro zei

I'm watching wwe now and i see kane and undertaker fight RIGHT NOW!

Why do you have to be like that? I can't actually watch any wrestling over here because, well, it isn't on any Dutch channels. It sucks big time :(

Piripi Anxo said...

wow! awsm plane!

Tetru Eunor said...

Cool story bro !

Help me spread some knowledge,thanks:

tetru.blogspot.com

Squall said...

wow, 5 years without a break is a pretty long time.

Mr. Black said...

That's crazy!

David said...

Showing my DAILY support,I REALLY need yours aswell!

Michele said...

Wow 5 years!

Showing my daily supp :)

Nerd Life said...

I appreciate your kind comments on my blog :)

Mister Sharaf said...

weird plain, I dont like this spy stuff :D who know what they got :D

rockStar said...

awesomeness! <3

Anonymous said...

now thats a spy plane

JP said...

thats a really nice invention, can't be long till we have a floating city then! hahahha

Mc Uncool said...

haha i remember something similar, a plane with solarcollectors. never was developed to the end though :D

Lil Pee said...

Damn that's sweet...

Jessi D said...

What will they think of next??

Sparrow said...

wow.
Showing my support for a fellow blogger!

If It Hit The Fan said...

Really interesting post! Keep it up.
Holden