Big boys UAVs: RQ-4 Global Hawk

Saturday, 16 January, 2010

A nice article over at Wired on the diversion of US military UAVs to Haiti to provide reconnaissance imagery for the relief effort. Demonstrates how the miltary are trying to get some good PR whilst also making a genuinely useful contribution. If you haven’t come across military UAVs then take a look at the RQ-4 Global Hawk; makes somewhat of a mockery of the kites I use and even some of the more security centric products. Just take a look at some of the specs:

Length: 13.54 m
Wingspan: 35.41 m
Height: 4.62 m
Gross weight: 10,387 kg
Cruise speed: 650 km/h
Endurance: 36 hours
Service ceiling: 19,812 m

It can survey up to 100,000 square kilometer of terrain a day and carries SAR VNIR instruments on board. A serious bit of kit, but then they cost $35M each. Not sure a NERC grant would stretch to one of these!

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