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back to article Facebook's laser-powered internet drone preps for take off

The prototype craft for Facebook’s laser internet-in-the-sky is close to take off. A solar-powered, carbon fiber flying V-shaped wing, that’ll pump out 10Gbit/s connectivity using a laser, will begin test flights “soon”, the firm said Thursday. Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer said preparation for the …

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  1. Stuart 22

    Be careful of the bearded one ...

    "A fleet of Aquila’s would be tethered to a ground-based internet up link, flying at heights of 60-90,000 feet – far above the height of normal commercial airline flight paths."

    Isn't that Virgin Galactic territory?

    1 0 Reply
    1. Zog_but_not_the_first
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      Alien

      Re: Be careful of the bearded one ...

      Drone wars begun, they have.

      10 0 Reply
    2. getHandle
      Reply Icon

      Re: Be careful of the bearded one ...

      Dammit - the phrase is "now targeting space-based lasers". What kind of credibility is an evil genius going to have saying " now targeting 60000-90000 feet-based lasers", huh?

      8 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Custard
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        Joke

        Re: Be careful of the bearded one ...

        Not to mention the fact it doesn't even look like a frikkin shark :)

        0 0 Reply
    3. anothercynic Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Be careful of the bearded one ...

      No... FL900 is a third into the atmosphere... :-)

      0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't you just love the idea ..

    .. of giving Zuckerberg his own laser war fleet?

    I guess this is for the people who dare to criticise Facebook.

    Joking aside, do we want people to have fleets of kit in the air that can intercept anything going? Even the NSA and GCHQ were not that bold.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't you just love the idea ..

      yes they were. There are satellites that governments can sidle up next to other satellites to listen in and there are sigint aircraft which have big phased arrays on the side that they can fly over "operating areas".

      0 0 Reply
  3. Peter Simpson 1
    WTF?

    Lasers at 60-90000 ft?

    The airline pilots are going to love this.

    There is, of course, no chance that these lasers might point into some random cockpit.

    5 0 Reply
  4. ecarlseen

    Laser mounted on a drone?

    It's not really impressive until they mount it on a shark.

    3 0 Reply
    1. choleric
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      Re: Laser mounted on a drone?

      And I won't be impressed until I see a shark with a swept back carbon fibre wing cruising for weeks at 90,000 feet, with lasers.

      If I saw that I would be impressed, very impressed.

      But I bet the shark wouldn't.

      5 0 Reply
      1. cortland
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        Re: Laser mounted on a drone?

        Not impressed, nor even COMpressed. VERY much "DEcompressed."

        0 0 Reply
  5. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Can the laser be used to pop G000gle's fleet of balloons?

    8 0 Reply
  6. Chronigan

    Anyone else wondering how they plan to monetize this? What is the plan for this beyond simply doing it? how do they plan to help people besides providing an internet connection?

    0 0 Reply
    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Childcatcher

      Monetising and helping people aren't necessarily the same thing. During the Arab Spring uprisings social media was hugely important to the people but not profitable to the social media platforms themselves. Could it be that Zuckerberg has this kind of altruistic application in mind?

      0 0 Reply
    2. Merlin54
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      How they plan to monetize this ? Man, this drone is BIG. I thought they'll play with much smaller ones which we buy for hobby. However, this big drone they could always rent it to US Air force for Syria and Iraq missions.

      0 0 Reply
  7. Mikel

    Finally

    A useful implementation of RFC 1149.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Finally

      Assuming they are using this guidance system.

      0 0 Reply
  8. Mark 85

    Have they done wind tunnel tests? As I recall, tailless designs like this (B2, the old FlyWing from decades ago, etc.) are rather unstable. For a military aircraft you'd want that for maneuverability... for something like this, I'm not so sure.

    0 1 Reply
    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Presumably the purpose of this small prototype is to answer that question.

      (the one in the pic is clearly not the full-size 43-meter span)

      0 0 Reply
      1. Bob H
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        That picture is cropped here is a full size view.

        0 0 Reply
  9. Big-nosed Pengie

    Clouds?

    Could they be a problem?

    1 0 Reply
    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: Clouds?

      The data gets stored until the skies clear. Cloud storage.

      Sorry.

      8 0 Reply
  10. Zmodem

    only facebook are sad enough to want to make a trampoline fly

    0 0 Reply
  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Facebook built the flying laser drone in 14 months at a secret facility in Somerset, using a team of experts with track records in solar-powered flight, Schroepfer said. Again, he would not reveal the location of the facility or the individuals involved."

    built ... in 14 months = plenty enough time for a special project.

    Somerset = basically south = Spain.

    Solar-powered = plants = hops = beer.

    Messing around with lasers? Check.

    Therefore: individuals involved = Lester

    1 0 Reply

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