The Global Hawk can already take a tonne to 18-20 km for nearly two days. The comparison between it and similar aircraft with the long endurance solar powered planes carrying small payloads will come down to the logistical and operational realities. Costs for UAVs are always underestimated initially, and it takes military scale budgets to deal with it, at least so far. It will be interesting to see how Google, Facebook and other internet corporations react, but they are interested in compact electronic equipment rather than mass-to-altitude.
Adrian Tuck [email protected] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/atmospheric-turbulence-9780199236534?cc=gb&lang=en&; On 3 Feb 2016, at 00:52, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote: > Poster's note : these solar drones may be much more like the kind of aircraft > that deliver geoengineering gases than the business jets that costings are > often based on. Clean, slow and unmanned, they're very different aircraft. > Those in this article have a small payload, but scaling the platform, and > removing the batteries for daytime use, would substantially change the > platform economics. > > MoD to buy high-flying solar planes - > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35478489 > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
