London, England (Quote by CNN) - An unmanned solar plane broke the world record for continuous flight.The "Zephyr" plane developed by British company Defence Technology, QinetiQ, flew from Yuma to land the U.S. Army 's Proving in Arizona on 09 July. within seven days, is still flying high.
Zephyr program director, Jon marshes told CNN: "It's very exciting. What we now have is an eternal plane. It has the same amount of fuel at the start of a day as it does in the beginning of another."
The plane has already doubled his own unofficial record of more than 82 hours and broke the previous world record for unmanned flight of 30 hours and 24 minutes, established in 2001 by the U.S. aerospace company, RQ-4A Northrop Grumman Global I.
Zephyr The project was conceived in 2001 and obtained funding from the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) three years later. After several prototypes, marshes QinetiQ believes has now created an aircraft that demonstrates real military utility.
"He has the persistence to stay there for long periods of time and carries payloads that are doing things that the military will find useful."
Marsh says that his role will be key in helping communications.
"Sitting at 60,000 feet is ideal to get a line of sight between two people in different valleys," said marshes. "But it could also carry payloads of surveillance."
QinetiQ also says it will save the military money, performing many tasks currently performed by manned aircraft.
With a weight of 53 kilograms (117 pounds), the plane has a wingspan of 22.5 meters (74 feet) and a wing area of 30 square meters (323 square feet), the top of which is covered with panels solar thin a sheet of paper.
The panels are rigged to the lithium-sulfur batteries that power the aircraft at night.
QinetiQ began to build the latest model Zephyr 18 months ago and hope to start full-scale military trials within a year.
The company said that Zephyr will also find a helping civilian use during distress communications and monitoring of forest fires.
"You can sit over a fire, with heat sensor technology and identify access points so fast," said marshes.
Zephyr shows no signs of running out of energy in the short term, marshes and hopes to stay in the air for seven days, when the plane finally return to Earth.
