Record

Back in November, we had a guy in Greece sending his Mavic Pro drone up to 8,200 feet. Now we have a presumably Russian drone pilot who goes even higher. His race drone, weighing 2.34 pounds, flies up to 33,691 feet, well into the cruising altitude of commercial airliners and passenger jets. Unlikely as it may seem, but if his drone were to collide with one of those manned aircraft it could be catastrophic.

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In January this year, Vanilla Aircraft’s VA001 set the world record for longest internal combustion drone flight in history. It flew for 56 hours straight. That record has now been broken by the same 36ft (11m) wingspan, diesel-powered unmanned aircraft that stayed in the air for 5 days, 1 hour and 24 minutes. After it flew in an orbit for more than 7,000 miles, it landed with still more than 3 days of fuel in its tanks.

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