Bye Aerospace has completed the maiden flight of the solar electric technology demonstrator prototype of its ‘StratoAirNet and ‘Solesa’ families of medium-altitude aircraft at Northern Colorado Regional Airport in the US.

The piloted flight was followed by a series of subsequent flights at the Northern Colorado Regional Airport.

Bye Aerospace’s Solesa and StratoAirNet family of aircraft are designed to support various long-endurance commercial and government security missions, including patrol, observation, utility, mapping, precision agriculture, search-and-rescue, as well as surveillance.

The Solesa aircraft system can be flown to conduct manned patrol and survey missions for shorter durations, while it can be used as a research and development (R&D) test platform for new customer payloads.

Bye Aerospace has developed the StratoAirNet system as a longer-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

The system is expected to go through necessary steps to confirm its capability to perform unmanned missions.

Compared to traditional systems, both StratoAirNet and Solesa require less operating costs, as well as improve utility and reduce heat and noise signatures.

“Bye Aerospace is planning to partner with SolAero, combining their advanced high-efficiency solar cell technologies on the advanced graphite composite wing.”

Bye Aerospace is planning to partner with SolAero, combining their advanced high-efficiency solar cell technologies on the advanced graphite composite wing.

In April, Bye Aerospace concluded the first flight of its ‘Sun Flyer 2’ aircraft, which is designed to cater to the flight training and general aviation markets.

Part of the company’s Sun Flyer family of aircraft, Sun Flyer 2 is an all-electric airplane and is expected to be certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Bye Aerospace will team up with Siemens for the future development of Sun Flyer 2, which is configured with two seats.