28 “That method was very quick, but controlling the Z4’s orientation during ascent was difficult, so in 2005 QinetiQ retired the launcher and switched to ground launching,” Tyler recounts. “They’d realised that the UAV was so light that it could actually be hand-launched by technicians spread across the wingspan.” That concept was proven with the Z5 redesign, which operated from late 2005 to early 2006, flying for a cumulative total of 35 days and at up to 35,000 ft. This phase also marked the first use of a dedicated GCS, with multiple radios, computers and workspaces for the flight team. The Zephyr 6 followed in 2007, and was developed through to 2009. Five flights totalling 206 hours were carried out in those years, reaching a maximum altitude of 61,800 ft, with considerable redesign and improvement in the GCS architecture being done at the same time. “The Z6 was really where we went from being a project to a programme – the MoD and QinetiQ directors all agreed that the Zephyr was viable, and we were making routine weight reductions and size increases using advances in materials and structural optimisation tools,” Tyler says. From QinetiQ to AALTO The Zephyr 7 first flew in July 2010, with confidence in its ability to fly at a record 70,000 ft in daylight with minimal operator intervention (beyond the hand-launching). Its initial 14-day trial included a strategy to avoid a potentially catastrophic storm between days 4 and 6. “Autonomy was always on the table, but it was with the Z7 that we really went from having our hands on the control sticks to taking our hands off and letting the mission run in an automated way,” Tyler says. Six more flights followed through to 2014, over numerous sunlight-rich locations including the UAE, Ascension Islands and Arizona. This helped to show that the Zephyr could easily be dismantled, packed into a container and transported to a new launch point. “But while we’d made a lot of advances with lighter composites, plastics, foams and other subsystems, what really held the Z7 back was its lack of battery capacity for maintaining altitude overnight,” Tyler recounts. “The team looked at the design, reduced the dihedral angle to mitigate the Dutch roll resulting from the rarefied air in the stratosphere, and did things like changing cable harnesses and battery cells to increase our effective Wh/kg.” In 2015, Airbus acquired the Zephyr from QinetiQ, and the developments above shortly fed into what became the Z8. This has remained the focus of the programme’s flights and r&d to date. “At the beginning of 2022, we also spun out of Airbus as HAPS Connectivity Solutions, spending a lot of that year in a transitional state between being Airbus and being this new organisation, before officially becoming AALTO HAPS in January 2023,” Tyler says. December/January 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The Z6 flew from 2007 to 2009, accumulating 206 flight hours and reaching a maximum altitude of 61,800 ft More than 3000 flight hours have been achieved by the Z8, with 12 units built and flown to date
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