A lot has happened in the last few weeks, so I haven’t really had time to build a kite or really explore that possibility any further. In the mean time, I’ve worked on UAV possibilities we can look into, specifically UAV designs which promote longer flight times. Most of these have been fixed wing designs, which tend to be less of a drain on batteries. One particular inspiration is the Silent Falcon drone, which is designed for LiDAR work, and has 5-12 hour life depending on wing configurations. Building such an aircraft would mean getting carbon fiber moulding equipment in the shop, which I think will be useful no matter what drone we decide to build. Carbon fiber is pretty much the standard for quality UAV solutions, and it will make sense to make as much out of composite materials as we can.

http://www.silentfalconuas.com/Silent-Falcon.html