The Zephyr High-Altitude Long-Endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is an ultra-lightweight carbon-fibre aircraft. Weighing in at only 50 Kilograms it is 22.5 m long and flies on solar power generated by amorphous silicon arrays covering the aircraft’s wings, no thicker than sheets of paper. It is powered day and night by rechargeable lithium-sulphur batteries that are recharged during the day using solar power.
During July 2010 the Zephyr which is built by Qinetic achieved a 14 day, 21 minute flight reaching an altitude of 70,000. In itself this flight doubled the world endurance record but it is thought that the Zephyr can actually stay aloft for months on end.
During my visit to the Farnborough Air Show last year I was struck by how quickly Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) had developed and the large variety of roles to which they had been adapted. At the time of a large scale review of Defence expenditure in the UK there is a real opportunity for Greater Cambridgeshire in this new and vital aviation sector.
The attached video shows the new Boeing Phantom Eye UAV. It is a good example of a "High Altitude Long Endurance" (HALE) vehicle which can loiter over global trouble spots for up to 10 days at a time. This makes basing in East Anglia a real possibility for operations in Afghanistan. There are also equally interesting civilian application opportunities.
The vehicle is extremely environmentally friendly being propelled by 2 truck engines fuelled by liquid and gaseus Hydrogen and producing only Oxygen as a bi-product. The low weight composite construction materials and fabrication methods are a key ingredient.
As a payload it can carry a sophistcated array of sensors and communication equipment with the ability to take airborne intelligence and surveillance to new levels.
All the attributes and capabilities to produce and operate a vehicle like the Phantom Eye are already uniquely available within the "Greater" Cambridgeshire "high technology" cluster.
- Operating and intelligence interpretation at bases in East Anglia
- Aircraft manufacturing in Cambridge, Ramsay, Stevenage supported by expertise from the Institute for Manufacturing IfM at Cambridge University
- Leading Sensor, Communication and RFID expertise in Cambridge
- Composite materials expertise and capability in Huntingdon
- Environmental expertise and capability in Peterborough.
Plans for a new Local Economic Partnership for a "greater" Cambridgeshire could really take advantage of the opportunities of this new new "Aviation and Defence" sector.
