I agree that 60,000 feet asl is above the normal air lanes, but I see that it is driven by 4 propellers, and the air is pretty thin up there - I have doubts they will manage to achieve that altitude. Also, there is the weather phenomenon known as the 'jetstream' - which would sweep a lightweight airframe hundreds of kilometres off-station. Nice idea. Lots of publicity value. I don't see it happening anytime soon :( Cheers, Tony On 22/07/2016, Haggai Nyang <haggai.nyang@gmail.com> wrote:
60,000 feet is more than the service ceiling of most commercial airliners.
Boeing 777 for example has a service ceiling of about 43,000ft ~ 13km.
On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 6:23 AM, Tony White via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
Will they not become a hazard for commercial airliners? A quick-and-dirty calculation for Kenya shows that we would have about 120 of these buzzing around overhead, each covering an area of about 5000 square kilometres. I wonder what KCAA will have to say about this ;)
Cheers, Tony
On 21/07/2016, Mwendwa Kivuva via skunkworks <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
I would want to hear what Ms Ebele, the Head of Public Policy for Africa at FB, has to say on plans for the marginalised.
It's beautiful, and audacious too. Aquila is a solar-powered airplane that can be used to bring affordable internet to hundreds of millions of people in the hardest-to-reach places. When complete, Aquila will be able to circle a region up to 60 miles in diameter, beaming connectivity down from an altitude of more than 60,000 feet using laser communications and millimeter wave systems. Aquila is designed to be hyper efficient, so it can fly for up to three months at a time. The aircraft has the wingspan of an airliner, but at cruising speed it will consume only 5,000 watts — the same amount as three hair dryers, or a high-end microwave.
See the Youtube video: https://youtu.be/eOez_Hk80TI
Regards ______________________ Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya twitter.com/lordmwesh
-- Tony White
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