Hydrogen-Powered Navy UAV Shatters Flight Endurance Record

Awww man, I'd love to work on one of those. I can't wait till they reach the fleet, or something similar to them. Question is, what will they launch off of? A destroyer? How so? Or maybe our next carrier?

Proud Sailor of the USN

Now THAT! is an American revolution and innovation. We can do it. Let there be no doubt about it.

I'm thinking an entirely new class of carriers, loaded with inexpensive drones, unleashing swarms of hurt in the battlefield. Shoot one down??... no problem... switch pilot to another drone... LOL

There was nothing said about it launching from a carrier.

If it only has a .75HP engine and weighs 35 pounds, that means it's likely to be launched from humvee's or by backbacked and launched by humans.

if its launched by humans in a back pack, that would take a lot of strength to carry the already 50+ pound pack on ur back.

This is proof of concept in the worst ways. At micro (read, "near useless toy") weights, this thing would, at best be a backpack scouter. A backpack scouting UAV does not need a 24 hour hang time. There is nothing it could do that a sensor packed conventional UAV couldn't do better hanging over head.

Yes, Hydro fuel is going to let us run things off of clean electricity and is likely the answer to "balancing the grid" between constant and variable source energy types (excess wind, solar, tidal, and others verse variable human demand can be balanced through production at peak human use with excess generation being routed to Hydro-fuel creation).

For air travel, however, hydro just can't touch good old fuel combustion. We are not talking about the environment or even a commercial fleet here. We are talking weapons of war and death. For military aircraft, there is no reason to replace fossil fuels until the horizon shows us a shortage of military access to jet quality fuel.

@ Oakspar77777

However, the hydrogen powered motor did prove four times more efficient than similarly powerful combustion engines and seven times more powerful than a comparably sized battery.

According to the quote in the article right there you are completely wrong.

a 4x improvement is substantial. now I would like to see them try scaling this up and see if that level of efficiency remains in a larger unit, if so I would say this is quite an achievement.

There's nothing saying that it's a full sized model. It could have it's size increased to be capable of launches from a carrier, and at 35 lbs, it won't be needing the catapult for launch.

Proud Sailor of the USN

This is not some stunt. When they make the power pack better it may function longer than a gas drone plus they can add solar cells to the wings to extend what they have already. Some solar drones can run almost that long without a power pack. But, the REALLY big point that blainless missed is that it is quiet. Who wants a spy drone that sounds like a chainsaw? With electric it can come in very close and not even be seen. You want to bet that guys hiding out, run for cover the second they hear a plane?