HALE Another: AeroVironment’s Global Observer

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

We reported last month on Boeing’s High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle, the Phantom Eye.  Now AeroVironment’s similar HALE, the Global Observer, is undergoing initial flight testing at NASA Dryden Flight Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California. Meant to provide “persistent” communications and remote sensing capabiliies for military or civilian applications, the less-than-10,000-pound Global Observer can carry 400-pound payloads to 65,000 feet and stay there for a week on its four electric motors, which resemble larger versions of  the Astro-Flight motors used on Helios, Pathfinder, and other AeroVironment craft. Missions, according to the firm, include “low cost, rapidly deployable telecommunications infrastructure and GPS augmentation; hurricane and storm tracking, weather monitoring, wildfire detection, and sustained support for relief operations; and aerial imaging and mapping for commercial and environmental monitoring, agriculture crop management and harvesting optimization.” The airplane’s cruising altitude and “field of view” place it between smaller, tactical reconnaissance craft and satellites. It’s 175-foot wingspan, large cargo pod …