DARPA plans craft for five-year flight
DARPA is close to awarding a contract for the initial development phase of an unmanned aircraft capable of staying aloft for five years at a time, according to the aviation magazine Flight.
"Aviation has a perfect record--we've never left one up there. We will attempt to break that record," DARPA Vulture program manager Daniel Newman told Flight Global. "We want to completely change the paradigm of how we think of aircraft."
Call it a "persistent pseudo-satellite capability in an aircraft package"--DARPA does. Documents from the R&D agency envision the Vulture as being able to loiter uninterrupted over an area for more than five years at a time while performing intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and communication missions.
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