Interesting, but it's difficult to see what practical use it is other than developing better solar cells and batteries for other uses. Maybe observation aircraft but it's a bit big, slow and unstealthy for military applications.
Of course no experimental carft weather it be aeriel, waterborne or land has a practical use but serve to prove the concept.
Any practical use would mean it being specialised and handicap the technology test as such
So once proven it can possibly have a use but that's not always the case.
Might be useful for long distance or out of civilisatation, slow low surveying work that is a logistics nightmare with expensive helipcopters needing refuelling out at the back of beyond.
Maybe Google could use something like this to photograph your back garden
Garry
"In the world of virtual reality things are not always what they seem."
Maybe observation aircraft but it's a bit big, slow and unstealthy for military applications.
Depends on the application, it'd probably be fine for providing 24/7 surveillance over Afghanistan, the Taliban being surprisingly short of radar guided SAMs, or patrolling maritime areas to monitor fishing fleets etc. Of course I'd hope it'd be a full UAV for that otherwise someone's going to get awful cramp sitting in the cockpit for so long!
I didn't mean to sound disapproving, it's quite an achievement in itself and I'm in favour of doing things "because they're there". It just struck me that I couldn't think of any practical purpose for a plane like this.
If you need a reason for doing it, improved batteries and solar panels would be good enough IMO.
Garry is quite right (he usually is) that pure research without any obvious commercial goal is also worthwhile, many discoveries have been made by people looking for something completely different. Penicillin and microwaves for cooking spring to mind.
Good point by Skippy that it wouldn't be a good target for a heat seeking missile.
My comment wasn't meant to be contradictive to your impression of it.
In fact, I did think a little to myself, how efficent is it and what practical purpose will it serve.
But that was a flash of thought .. milliseconds. I was more interested in watching the landing....talk about low and slow.
It almost seamed to hover a few times before TD..
.... and then
I was there sitting in the chair , wondering what I went in there for ... ah car keys.
time to get going.
