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Solar Powered Plane Take off 24
Hours
A manned
solar-powered airplane took off in the early
hours of Wednesday morning for a 24-hour trip that will include its first
night time flight.
After being postponed last week, the flight began at 6:51 a.m. local time,
when the Solar Impulse HB-SIA aircraft took off from the Pay erne airbase in
Switzerland with Andre Borscherg, CEO and cofounder of the Solar Impulse
project, at the controls.
“For seven years now, the whole team has been passionately working to
achieve this first decisive step of the project,” Borschberg said before
easing himself into the cockpit for a flight expected to last until Thursday
morning.
On the “cockpit” section of the Solar Impulse website, followers can
track the aircraft’s altitude, air speed and
myriad other factors.
Over the course of the day on Wednesday — until about 7:30 p.m. local time —
the prototype aircraft will slowly ascend to an altitude of 8,500 meters,
while at the same time
charging its batteries in preparation for the
night flight.
About two hours before sunset, when the sun’s rays stop being strong enough
to supply the
solar cells with more energy, the HB-SIA will
start a slow descent, reaching an altitude of around 1,500 meters by 11 pm.
It will then use the energy stored in its batteries to continue flying until
sunrise on Thursday morning.
The big question is whether the pilot can make efficient use of the battery
energy to fly throughout the night. If this mission is successful, it will
be the longest and highest flight ever made by a solar plane. The flight
also represents the first test of this length with people on board, Eric
Raymond, told president of Solar Flight.
Raymond has participated on the Solar Impulse project and is currently
working on a two-seater solar aircraft that will be ready next summer, he
said.
With a wingspan of 63.4 meters — the same as an Airbus A340 — and a length
of 21.85 meters, the Solar Impulse craft weighs 1,600 kg. It includes 11,628
solar cells — 10,748 on the wings and 880 on the horizontal stabilizer — as
well as four electric engines.
Its average flying speed is 70 kilometers (43 miles) per hour. That speed,
in fact, is currently a limiting factor when it comes to widespread use of
solar-powered aircraft, Raymond pointed out.
Typical coast-to-coast jets, by contrast, travel at more like 600 miles per
hour. “When people are in a hurry, they like to fly at high speeds,” he
explained. With solar aircraft, “that’s not going to be possible for some
time.” On Raymond’s own craft, he can fly at altitudes as high as 21,000
feet with the plane’s windows open, he said. Looking ahead, then, the next
steps in solar flight will be to increase both flying speeds and payload
capabilities, Raymond added.
“The notion of having solar-powered aircraft is an interesting one,” Brad
Collins, executive director of the American Solar Energy Society, told
TechNewsWorld.
Currently, there are also electric airplanes under construction in China,
Collins noted.
“If you had a technical marriage between solar on the wings and electric
power, you could really start to impact not only the global influences of
flight but also efficiencies and costs,” he suggested, noting that fuel is
currently the No. 1 cost in traditional air travel.
After two less-than-stellar years, the solar energy industry should return
to growth rates in the 60- to 100-percent range in 2010, Collins added.
“Solar is one of the bright spots in the global economy,” he concluded, “as
more people are realizing that it’s the energy source of the future.”
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