“…Vanilla Unmanned demonstrated 8 days, 50 minutes, and 47 seconds of continuous flight, breaking the world record for unrefueled, internal combustion endurance of an unmanned aircraft.

Vanilla launched from Rogers Dry Lakebed on Friday, September 24th and was recovered on Saturday, October 2nd having flown 12,200 miles over Edwards Air Force Base with a communications relay system & ample ballast to accommodate other sensors.

The 8-day flight is a step change from Vanilla’s prior record of 5 days and is without comparison to other UAS.  The flight was conducted in coordination with Edwards Air Force Base and has been submitted for ratification as an official world record.

The world-record flight was the last in a series of events at Edwards Air Force Base demonstrating Vanilla’s unique multi-day, multi-sensor capability.  Several sorties over 50 hours each carried two EO/IR cameras, two satellite communications systems for BVLOS operations, and a customer-proprietary radar in addition to the mesh radio system.