well, not really. Still, the craft proved that solar power COULD move a vehicle for months on end, and may have opened the door for a whole new breed
of recon aircraft...
That ScanEalge is indeed another new UAV project (wonder if all those UAV projects are really worth it )
But you can't really compare is to the helios, since the ScanEagle is not solar-powered...
Just look at the thing, it was never designed to land! They say it was meant to fly continuasly, they might have needed to fix it or bring it down for
data purposes. I didn't read the article like a should have, but thats just the first impression I got from your post.
They already did some test flights, and it is able to land.
The problem is, the airframe is very fragile(spell??).. It's even more difficult to land than a U-2 spy plane...
It can only operate at minimum winds speeds, a sudden increase in windspeed probably caused the crash, since it was flying over the ocean near
Hawaii...
No I don't have any footage of it, I saw fly it on discovery once...
Yeah, I believe they only fly it on the weast coast, Hawaii is the only place it flew (as fas as I know).