Facebook’s Aquila drone completes second successful test flight

Facebook's plan to use large solar-powered high-altitude drones to connect areas of the world that traditionally did not have reliable internet access achieved a significant milestone yesterday.

Aquila, its first functional drone, completed its second successful test flight, landing successfully. The first time around, aircraft suffered structural failure that affected the its landing leading to an NTSB investigation.

Aquila's second flight on 22 May saw the drone take-off just after dawn. It rose to a flight ceiling of above 3,000 feet and remained airborne for one hour and 46 minutes. The drone climbed at a rate double that of the first test flight - it ascended at 180 feet/minute, which, according to the team was a result of a number of ''refinements'' made to the Aquila platform as a result of info gleaned from the first test.

According to Facebook, the Aquila craft is not designed to do anything terribly fast, despite the increases in climb rate; it can only fly about 10-15 mph when flying upwind, but it was meant to provide consistent access to an area by staying over it for a relatively long time, so this was actually advantageous. It draws power generated by its solar gathering system, roughly the same amount of power consumed by three blow dryers, Facebook says.

Facebook's Martin Luis Gomez said, ''Aquila's second test flight took into account the lessons we learned from our first flight. In advance of the second flight, we incorporated a number of modifications to Aquila…'', www.bgr.in reported.

Aquila has a wingspan wider than a Boeing 737 and the body of the plane is made of a carbon fibre composite. The drone weighs less than 1,000 pounds or about the same as a grand piano.

According to Jay Parikh, Global Head of Engineering and Infrastructure at Facebook, on completion, Aquila will be able to circle a region up to 96 km in diameter, beaming connectivity down from an altitude of over 60,000 feet using laser communications and millimetre wave systems.