Strange "aircraft" on the old air station in Alameda

S

seruriermarshal

ACCESS: Top Secret
Joined
4 May 2008
Messages
1,177
Reaction score
533
Strange "aircraft" on the old air station in Alameda
 

Attachments

  • Strange aircraft on the old air station in Alameda.jpg
    Strange aircraft on the old air station in Alameda.jpg
    103.7 KB · Views: 362
Strange indeed. It appears as though work on it has stalled. Or is it just hanging around? -SP
 
Given the neighborhood, I wonder if it is related to any of the efforts akin to those by Facebook, Google, etc.and the like to create an unmanned high-altitude "pseudo-satellite" broadband platform?
 
The wing makes me think it has pretensions to long endurance but the number and distribution of the motors makes me think it's intended to hover or do a tail sitter type of VTOL. But then that long tail boom rather argues against that. Equally, it appears to be undergoing tethered testing so that supports the VTOL theory. Oh well, time will (may?) tell....
 
That's one of Google's moonshot projects alright...it's called Makani or something like that. It's a tethered wind generator.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom