The Skydweler drone
Rider
A solar energy surveillance drone with a larger scale than a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jew could fly for weeks or months at a time, according to his operator, while monitoring drug counterparts, pirates or naval warships. He made test flights off the American Gulf coast this month.
The Skydweller drone, operated by the American -Spanish company Skydweller Aero, has a wing of 72 meters – exceeding the width of most commercial passenger jets. But it only weighs around 2,500 kilograms – as much as a Ford F -150 truck. It is based on the Solar Impulse 2 plane, which made the first solar flight around the world in 2016. Skydweler Aero bought and converted the pioneering plane in order to build a fleet of solar energy drones similar to drones in carbon fiber in flight hours.
The Skydweller drone did the first flight unrelated to the world of a solar plane in April 2024. It also made additional test flights throughout this year, with the longest duration of more than 22 hours, supported by American military funding to assess its relevance for maritime drone patrols.
More recently, the solar energy drone has made its longest flight to date after taking off from Stennis International Airport in Mississippi on July 20. He stayed in the air on the Gulf coast for more than three days before landing on July 23, according to the Flightradar24 flight tracking service. The service shows that the drone also flew earlier this month on July 14 for more than 18 hours.
The scale of the Skydweller drone is almost twice that of the largest surveillance drones, such as the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk used by the US Air Force, and its payload of 400 kilograms far exceeds the weight that the most emerging drones can lift. And recently, the French aerospace company Thales has helped equip the Skydweler drone with an airborne surveillance radar.
But the quest for several decades to market solar drones “was a story of high hopes and spectacular failures”, explains Arthur Holland Michel, research partner at the Peace Research Institute Oslo in Norway. Google and Facebook both tried to develop solar energy drones to provide internet service before abandoning their efforts. Aerospace Airbus manufacturer has also invested massively in its small electric solar drone Zephyr, but “has not yet seen significant yields”, explains Michel.
“The military has been sponsoring the flights of demonstration of solar drones for more than a decade, but none has acquired technology for a recording program,” explains Michel. “Solar drones are impressive, and they have a lot of meaning in theory, but it is not immediately clear if there is a sustainable profitability analysis for them in practice.”
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