A drone designed to cure drought just took flight over Nevada

May04

by Sindy Cator on May 4, 2016 at 9:20 pm

Researchers and aviators in Nevada completed the first successful test flight of a drone designed to bring rain to drought-stricken regions. The flight, which took place last week at an FAA-approved test site in Hawthorne, Nevada, was an 18-minute test of the ‘Sandoval Silver State Seeder,’ an unmanned aerial vehicle with an 11-foot wingspan designed to deploy rain-causing silver iodide into clouds. The Seeder only managed an altitude of 400 feet and didn’t cause any precipitation, but the project lead still deemed it “a tremendous accomplishment for the state of Nevada and everyone involved.” Chief engineer Amber Broch echoed the…