The great effort to break all the previous record is now successful. The UK-built zephyr - a high altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle plane has set a world record for longest unmanned flight by staying aloft for more than 82 hours. That time beats the current official world record for unmanned flight set by the US robot plane global hawk - of 30 hours, 24 minutes and even zephyr’s own previous best of 54 hours achieved last year. Zephyr is an ultra-lightweight carbon fiber aircraft, that is launched by hand,
with a wingspan of up to 18 meters but weighing just 30 kg. It was guided by remote control to an operating altitude in excess of 18km and then flown on autopilot and via satellite communication.

it tested a communications payload weighing approximately 2kg.During the day, the plane draws on power supplied by paper-thin amorphous silicon solar arrays, mounted on its wings, while simultaneously charging batteries used for night operations. A lot of effort has gone into power storage and light-weighting the systems, explained Chris Kelleher from UK defense and research firm QinetiQ.This is a really fantastic technology that greatly help us to safe our lives.

Via