"Endless" Solar Flight Achieved

Just days after the record for manned solar flight was broken, the unmanned Zephyr from Qinetiq launched under FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) observation and has made the current record of 30 hours 24 minutes irrelevant as it has proven it can stay aloft indefinitely. The plane has been aloft more than 8 days as I'm writing this. It will be landed after flying two weeks. See the Flight Duration Clock on the Qinetic main page.

This represents a new class of UAV called HALE (High Altitude Long Endurance) that in the future might fill the gap betweek ICE UAVs and satellites.