Drone Flies the North Atlantic Tracks System

[allardjd 1,853]

Interesting - they put a General Atomics SkyGuardian drone into the North Atlantic Tracks system to get it across to the Fairford show. Yep - it flew itself there rather than being ferried in the belly of a transport.

 

This is a turboprop powered, advanced version of the MQ-9 Reaper/Predator B series.  The FlightRadar 24 screenshot shown in the linked article indicates the flight is from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Fairford and shows 153 knots at about FL 270, over Canada, possibly still in the climb phase fairly early in the flight.

 

This thing was apparently merged into the flow of commercial traffic in the east-bound North Atlantic Tracks System lanes.  

 

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/610992-hybrid-traffic-1st-drone-joins-n-atlantic-commercial-traffic-flow.html#post10194194

[mutley 4,497]

Another milestone, no doubt they have access to satellites we cant use for navigation, but very impressive nonetheless.

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

That is an impressive achievement.  I must admit I do have a soft spot for those aircraft. They are undoubtedly the way forward. this my 1/48 scale one.