The Boeing HALE is a concept for "high altitude, long endurance"
unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...
s.
Two demonstration HALE aircraft are currently under development:
[Haddox, Chris]
"SolarEagle (Vulture II) Backgrounder"
''Boeing Phantom Works'', September 2010. Retrieved: 18 October 2010.
* The
hydrogen powered Phantom Eye.
* The
solar-
electric
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described b ...
SolarEagle.
The HALE concept for surveillance missions includes flight altitudes above 65,000 ft, for endurance periods of days, months and even years – far beyond the 30-hour endurance of
RQ-4 Global Hawk
The Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk is a high-altitude, remotely-piloted surveillance aircraft of the 1990s–2020s. It was initially designed by Ryan Aeronautical (now part of Northrop Grumman), and known as Tier II+ during development. T ...
.
See also
*
AeroVironment Global Observer
The AeroVironment Global Observer is a concept for a high-altitude, long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, designed by AeroVironment (AV) to operate as a stratospheric geosynchronous satellite system with regional coverage.
Two Global Observe ...
*
DARPA Vulture
The Boeing SolarEagle (Vulture II) was a proposed High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle solar-electric spy plane developed by Boeing Phantom Works.Haddox, Chris"SolarEagle (Vulture II) Backgrounder" ''Boeing Phantom Works'', ...
*
QinetiQ Zephyr
The Airbus Zephyr is a series of lightweight solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The latest model is a high-altitude platform station capable of flying at for months at a time without fueling. It has a wingspan of and weighs .
De ...
References
{{UAV-stub
Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States
HALE