AeroVironment, developer of the Helios solar-powered high-altitude, long endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), is now flight testing a successor unmanned aircraft — the Global Observer, which is powered by liquid hydrogen. AeroVironment believes it is conducting the world's first liquic hydrogen powered UAV flight tests, noting that the USA and the Soviet Union experimented with hydrogen-fueled manned aircraft in the 1950s. More recently, NASA studied a fuel cell-powered aircraft the size of a Boeing 737 within its Revolutionary Aeropropulsion Concepts Program. Ted Wierzbanowski, AeroVironment's managing director, says "Global Observer offers a high altitude UAV capability we think is ready to be deployed. We need persistence, whether over a battlefield, a city or a country for both government and commercial applications."
展开▼
