The drone, which has a longer wingspan than a Boeing 747, flew for one hour and 46 minutes at an altitude of 3,000ft above the Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona in May. This is still a long way from Facebook's intended 60,000ft goal.
The drone flew with more sensors, new ‘spoilers’ on the ends of the wings to increase drag and reduce lift during landing and a horizontal propeller stopping system to help it better land after the crash in the first test, which was reportedly caused by heavy winds. The engineering team also modified the autopilot software and applied a smoother finish to the craft.
The drone was monitored by an engineering team watching a live stream from a helicopter chasing it. Martin Luis Gomez, Facebook’s director of aeronautical platforms, said the team was thrilled with the outcome: “The improvements we implemented based on Aquila’s performance during its first test flight made a significant difference in this flight,” he added.
The social network has ambitious plans for its drone fleet and eventually wants to have them communicating with each other via lasers and staying in the air for months at a time.
“When Aquila is ready, it will be a fleet of solar-powered planes that will beam internet connectivity across the world.” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote: “We successfully gathered a lot of data to help us optimise Aquila’s efficiency. No one has ever built an unmanned airplane that will fly for months at a time, so we need to tune every detail to get this right.”
