Slashdot Mirror
Around the World in a Solar Plane
Coati writes "Bertrand Piccard, the guy that flew around the world in a balloon, wants to do it again, this time in a solar plane."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
So after a few years of r&D half a dozen custom built protoypes (to be discarded as non-biodegradable junk) and other discarded parts they can have something that probably took more energy to make than a small town uses in a year, but then fly it around the world using only energy from the sun...I suppose it will be a cool engineering achievement.
.Sig. temporarily unavailable due to terminal lack of inventivness
People can stay in the air for several days in a glider. They use upward currents to gain height. You know, fly over a desert in the day, and over a forest at night.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Even so, doing this in one hop seems a little unlikely, unless circumnavigation near the pole in summer is in order, and it's not in my book! Ignoring the tilt of the Earth, then taking off at dawn and flying west to maximise the amount of daylight would require a circumnavigation within 36 hours before night would fall. That's in the region of an average speed of 1,000mph. Fully charged batteries at takeoff, flying on battery through pre-dawn and recharging through the day and finishing off on battery at night would reduce that some, but enough for one hop?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I would assume that the pilot would fly a zigziag course. During the day, they would fly westward to stay in the sun as long as possible. During the night, they would fly eastward to meet the dawn as soon as possible.
I also wonder if they might choose a route that flies over the upwelling of air at the equatorial convergence zone. It might be rough, but those air currents could help them stay aloft during the night.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
My guess is that they will probably climb during the day and charge batteries then glide all night with a small power draw to the batteries extending the glide. If they can climb enough during the day then they might not need to use batteries, and just glide until the morning. It should be possible to build such a machine with less than 100ft/min sink rate, perhaps even 50ft/min. Thanks 3000-6000 ft lost per hour, 8 hours is 24000-48000ft height loss. Manned flight makes this more complicated though with needing oxygen and heating the pilot at high altitudes.
NASA's little darling solar plane flew at about 90,000 feet, well above any potential cloud cover. You can assume that these guys are planning on the same strategy. But if you plan to send a manned flight up to 90k feet, doesn't that raise a whole slew of logistics questions? i.e., the amount of oxygen needed, the weight ratios to follow, etc...
The point of this kind of research is to improve technology. The result is more efficient solar cells and batteries, the kind of tech which will improve thousands of things.
Its not just some guy with loads of money who thinks it would be cool to fly around the world, it is serious research into several important fields. The kind of research that without rich enthusiasts wouldn't get done.
I agree that people should be more willing to spread the wealth, which is why I applaud the "give so much a month" approach charities use, and wish more people would do it. Who would notice 10 pounds a month missing from their salary of thousands? If everyone gave an amount they could afford without even noticing then a hell of a lot of people could be helped.