A British company is the first in history to fly a drone across the English Channel — a feat which was also the longest ever single flight of a quadcopter.
The team from Ocuair, a commercial drone company, flew the drone across the 32 kilometre stretch of water earlier this month on an “unusually sunny and calm morning”. The flight, starting in France and finishing in Dover, took just 72 minutes and, the team says “demonstrates the future potential of commercial drone technology”.
The journey wasn”t easy — because the English Channel is so busy, the drone had to dodge between two large boats. And 23 kilometres into the journey, the drone”s GPS guidance stopped working, meaning the team had to manually guide it for the last 20 minutes of the flight, something they describe as “extremely challenging”.
February 26, 2016 | Originally published by Date Line: February 26 on