A Historic Flight for a Small ‘Fortune’

The little guy won.

A 29-pound unmanned aircraft landed in a pasture in Scotland on Friday morning, becoming the first autonomous plane to cross the Atlantic.

With a wingspan of only 10 feet, it took the small plane, called an Aerosonde, 26 hours to complete the historic flight. It burned less than two gallons of fuel.

“We proved our point,” said Juris Vagners, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Washington, a major participant in the project. Vagners named the plane Laima, after the Latvian goddess of good fortune, in honor of his Latvian heritage. “She came through for us,” he said.

The third try had the charm. Two earlier attempts failed when one plane crashed moments after taking off from Newfoundland and the second was lost at sea. Laima was third, and a fourth plane, launched a few hours later, failed to show up in Scotland and was presumed down.

The Aerosondes, which cost about $15,000 each, have been under development for several years by Insitu Group, a small firm in Bingen, Wash. The company worked with Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre to build the first planes for weather reconnaissance over the Pacific. The University of Washington joined the effort later and provided funds from a federal grant for the planes to attempt the transatlantic flight.

The idea behind the historic flight was simply to demonstrate the viability of robotic planes for such things as flights over vast expanses of the Pacific to provide data for better weather forecasts. Despite the fact that three of the planes failed, sponsors of the project were elated Friday over the success of the one plane.

Greg Holland, Aerosonde project director for Australia’s weather bureau, said he was off to buy a bottle “of Scotland’s finest” to celebrate the occasion. “There is a lot left to do, but there is no longer any doubt that the concept works,” Holland said.

Hurdles to be overcome, according to Vagners, include improved communications that would allow ground controllers to keep tabs on the planes as they fly long distances. Laima was completely out of touch except for the very beginning and the ending of the flight.

The successful flight ended the chance that San Diego’s Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical, which built the Spirit of St. Louis for Charles Lindbergh, had to be the first to fly a robotic plane across the Atlantic. The company is toying with flying its sophisticated Global Hawk, built for the Defense Department, to France for the Paris Air Show in June.

“Congratulations are definitely in order,” said Teledyne Ryan spokesman Mark Day.

After it is returned from Scotland, Laima will be put on display in Seattle’s Museum of Flight near the old red barn where Boeing got its start.