Since it’s been quite over here, I thought I might share some...

Since it’s been quite over here, I thought I might share some info that AI helped with.
Skydweller is a USA drone with its sights set on Dusk to Dawn operations. It’s also known as perpetual flight.
Skydweller has a 77m wing span and carries 635kg of
Li-ion batteries. To achieve perpetual flight this sweet spot is 500kg of LiS batteries ( at 460Wh/kg) and 120m2 of Halocell’ panels operating at 25% efficiency, in 7 hours of sunlight. This would create a 45-50Wh surplus and thus perpetual flight.
The 500Kg of LiS batteries would run just shy of $350k Australian.
This number is a 40% increase on price of the top of the line Li-ion per Kilo and an exchange rate of .65c:1.0.

Compared to the images of the Pegasus, the Skydweller sticks out like Dog’s balls. From a greedy position, that would mean there is more $ in Skydweller winning the race.
I dug a little deeper and according to AI, 12 Skydweller’s could patrol/monitor 40,000km2, with lots of overlap and electrical warfare systems. A second set of spares drones and systems would come in at 10% of the Defence commitment for the new navy boats. I also had AI, price in some BNNT and ceramic coatings on the most vulnerable surface areas on the drone.

Hopefully they both succeed and need buckets of BNNT and batteries. On a slightly sadder note, if $420 US is the price (guide) for premium UAV batteries, I fear the wait for a LiS battery for my cordless drill is a way off.