A solar-powered drone built by a British defense contractor set two records when it remained airborne for more than two weeks this past summer, according to a published report.  The Federation Aéronautique Internationale recently confirmed these records.

Known as the Zephyr, the drone stayed aloft for 336 hours and 22 minutes above a U.S. Army installation in Arizona, the Los Angeles Times reports. That two-week 22-minute period from July 9 to July 13 was over the Yuma Proving Ground.

Constructed by QinetiQ, the robotic plane was airborne significantly longer than the Global Hawk, a Northrop Grumman unmanned drone that stayed up for 30 hours, 24 minutes in March 2001. Zephyr also surpassed the longest time a plane flew without refueling, a record set by the Rutan Aircraft Factory's Voyager in December 1986. Flying with a pilot, the Voyager stayed aloft for 216 hours, three minutes.

The English manufacturer is hoping news about the record-setting flight will influence orders for spy planes as QinetiQ is marketing the Zephyr as capable of "tracking pirates in the Gulf of Aden, detecting bush fires in Australia, and improving battlefield communications and surveillance in Afghanistan."

Equipped with solar panels on the wing, the Zephyr was remotely piloted and climbed in excess of 70,000 feet.