London, England (CNN) -- An unmanned solar aircraft has smashed the world record for continuous flight.
The "Zephyr" plane, developed by UK defense technology company, QinetiQ, took off from the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona on July 9. Seven days on, it was still flying high.
Zephyr program director, Jon Saltmarsh told CNN: "It's extremely exciting. What we now have is an eternal plane. It has the same amount of fuel at the start of one day as it does at the start of another".
The aircraft has already doubled its own unofficial record of over 82 hours and smashed the previous world record for unmanned flight of 30 hours and 24 minutes, set in 2001 by U.S. aerospace company, Northrop Grumman's RQ-4A Global I.
The Zephyr project was conceived in 2001 and secured funding from the UK's Ministry of Defense (MOD) three years later. After several prototypes, Saltmarsh believes QinetiQ has now created an aircraft that demonstrates genuine military utility.
