Carrier HX8 Tether

Carrier HX8 Tether is Harris Aerial’s persistent aerial system built from the coaxial HX8 airframe, an onboard AC-DC converter and the LEAP Solo 5K tether station. Shore-fed 5,000-watt power supports operations lasting up to 24 hours while retaining 21 pounds of payload capacity at a maximum 400-foot operating altitude.

The hybrid tether carries power, Fly-By-Tether control and up to three optical fibres, providing as much as 30 Gbps of data for integrated sensors. An automatic motor-controlled winch manages the line, while the vehicle’s eight-motor coaxial arrangement supplies propulsion redundancy. This is a complete tethered system with ground equipment, not the battery free-flight HX8 configuration.