This ‘flying sun’ drone is quick to deploy and could save lives

Freefly’s “Flying Sun 1000” is a new drone system bedecked with numerous LEDs powerful enough to fill a patch of ground with bright light. 

Watching the video (top), you can certainly see how this remarkable flying floodlight might come in useful for something like a search-and-rescue operation, when bringing conventional lighting equipment to a chaotic scene and securing it on potentially uneven ground could be a risky proposition, though Freefly also recommends it for things like construction sites, roadside emergencies, and urgent infrastructure inspections.

Capable of providing up to 300,000 lumens using just 288 LEDs, the system works with Freefly’s Alta X quadcopter. While designing the Flying Sun, the company thought carefully about the deployment process, aiming to make the machine simple enough to send skyward in just a few minutes. 

The contraption can fly on battery power for up to 50 minutes, but with the supplied tether, you can connect it to a power source for deployment right through the night, if required. The system uses the rotor wash from the Alta X drone to cool the aircraft’s LED lights, paving the way for thousands of hours of operation between services.

Pointing to some of its unique advantages, Washington-based Freefly says the Flying Sun provides “overhead diffused lighting for great illumination, less blinding, and reduced shadows.”

It’s certainly an innovative piece of kit that offers a unique solution for scenarios requiring dynamic illumination. 

The Flying Sun does, however, come with a hefty $60,000 price tag, positioning it as very much a premium solution compared to conventional lighting equipment. However, given its ease of setup, as well as simplicity when it comes to transportation and storage, the Flying Sun could, in specific scenarios, prove to be a more viable option than conventional floodlight systems.

Freefly says that it’s currently building 10 Flying Sun systems a month, with the first orders expected to ship in June this year.

The company has been in the drone business for 14 years, and a number of years ago hit the headlines with a flying machine that it said was designed to carry “the largest cinema payloads on the market.”