Hale will fly for months at high altitudeHoly Mercator! 60,000 feet sky highBy INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 15 June 2005, 13:55QINETIQ SAID it has won a contract to design and build an unmanned solar-electric UAV, which will fly at 60,000 feet for months at a time, and cut the cost of satellite and manned aircraft surveillance.The HALE (high altitude long endurance) plane will be built in a Verhaert system called Mercator which only weighs 27 kilos and has a wingspan of 16 metres.VITO, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research gave €11 million to Verhaert, which will provide the ground station for the plane, integrate the subsystem, test it, and get experimental flight clearance.The plane will start trials in the middle of next year, said Qinetiq.The firm said that stratospheric platforms will soon be commercially viable and be far cheaper than satellites for remoter areas and developing countries. The thing is built from ultra light structures.
