We feel at home at high altitudes
Why Haps?
When talking about high altitude for aircraft operation, the altitude range is about 7 to 50 km above ground level. This atmospheric layer is the stratosphere. To operate a manned or unmanned aircraft in the stratosphere - so called High Altitude Platform systems (HAPs) - is motivated by several facts:
- Less wind speeds/above jet streams
- No commercial airline traffic
- Low latency for communication applications
- And large coverage opportunities for different applications
Telecommunication networks and constellations
Traffic Monitoring of any kind
Research
Atmospheric observation
Border security
General surveillance
Agriculture observation
Earth imaging
Achievements
For high altitude operation, we at H3 HATS have a twin and a single seater GROB G520 aircraft in operation.
The GROB G520 is a turboprop long-endurance, high altitude surveillance aircraft. It was developed and certified in the early 1990s by GROB Aerospace. Both G520s have state of the art airframe structures fully made of composite materials.
The G520 twin seater is equipped with a full envelope autopilot system and is the ideal platform for OPV operations up to 45.000 ft altitude for about 12 hours total flight time. The single seater G520 has a state of the art cockpit.
The G520 is the world's only aircraft certified by CS-23/JAR-23 for altitudes up to 45.000 ft.
We are using both aircrafts in cooperation with several customers and partners, for instance Deutsche Telekom AG, Mynaric AG or Airbus.
Together with these partners, we conducted several demonstration flights of different communication and test equipment payload. We demonstrated the first flying radio tower integrated in the radio communication network in Germany.
We also demonstrated the first LASER based data communication between our aircraft and a ground based communication stations. Several test and demonstration flights related to communication purposes are ongoing.
Together with our partners, we are working on new technologies in case of autonomous operating HAP-systems for future telecommunication markets.
H3 HATS GmbH is part of H3 Aerospace Group
