Here this would fly 490 km/h on solar alone and 1040 km/h at high with batteries.

Well not this 1/300 model, but the real thing.

Boeing engineer was amazed about this recently.

Very stable flyer I may add.

For such small model it flies pretty well. Folks at Boeing were impressed too.

Right…that will easily carry the 2000kg of payload and produce the thousands of KVAs of power to run everything…….not!

In fact I am able to draw a concept for a well balanced electric aerodyne that produces 1 MW of power directly from the sun….and this is a ” street legal ” aeroplane with 80 m span ( max allowed for the runways world wide ). I addition it may have for several hours worth power from batteries with 1000-3000 kW ( 1-3 MW ) output if needed. This craft possibly needs more power than Aquila to stay a loft at 100 000 ft..maybe 100-200 kW.

I said already in 1979 that sosialism does not work..having lived next to USSR it was very obvious.

I think U-2 was obsolete as Gary Powers was shot down in one etc. SR-71 pretty much superceded its job.

I think these SPACOMs and rely link drones can do the U-2 job nicely.

http://www.the-nref.org/content/flying-wing-provide-internet-access