Boeing Condor

The Boeing Condor is a high-tech test-bed piston-engined aerial reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle with a wingspan of over 200 feet. Carbon-fibre composite materials make up most of its fuselage and wings, and although it has a relatively low radar cross-section and infrared signature it is not unobservable, which made it too vulnerable for military use. It is completely robotic, with an onboard computer that communicates by satellite with computers on the ground to control every part of its missions. The Condor had a 141-hour flight test programme and first flew on 9 October 1988, with two built. In 1989 it set the world piston-powered aircraft altitude record of 67,028 feet and became the first aircraft to fly a fully automated flight from takeoff to landing; it also flew continuously for more than 50 hours in 1988, an unratified unofficial endurance record. Both aircraft survive in museum collections.