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Solar-Powered Plane to Fly Around the World

Posted by timothy on from the adrian-monk-not-on-board dept.

securitas writes "The BBC's Carolyn Fry reports on the Solar Impulse project, a plan to circumnavigate the globe in a solar-powered airplane. Adventurers Brian Jones and Dr. Bertrand Piccard, who were the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon in 1999, are behind the Solar Impulse project. The project is proceeding to the design stage after a feasability study determined that the solar-powered airplane concept is a viable idea. While other solar-powered planes like the Helios prototype have relied on a secondary power source (fuel cells), this project will be powered by solar energy alone. Batteries will store energy received in daylight hours to fly all night. The first prototype is scheduled for launch in 2006."

5 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Re:FP! by Leffe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I first read about this sort of thing back in the 1970s. Proposals back then focused on constructing huge satellites (think 5 miles by 5 miles or 10 KM by 10 KM) in geosynchronous orbit. Energy would be beamed to earth via microwaves or lasers.

    Planes could be powered via laser pointed at various reception devices (photovoltaic, steam generators, etc.).

    Clouds would not be a major problem. Just pick a frequency that penetrated the clouds fairly easily. Or, in the case of airplanes, fly above the clouds.

    For lots more information, just Google "Space Solar Power" [google.com].

  2. What about... by Film11 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Let me get this straight. Solar powered planes? How would this work in say a flight from London to America? It takes about a day in which the sun goes down. What will happen when the sun goes down? Will it crash? Will it run on reserve batteries? I'm not the world's most intelligent person, but I'm wondering how this will catch on...

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    ):
    1. Re:What about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      And..
      is this to be a manned flight? All previous solar-powered flights were unmanned and remote-controlled, since the weight factor makes manned flight impractical, due to the small power available to a solar craft.

  3. Flying at night? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    "Batteries will store energy received in daylight hours to fly all night."

    Why not just fly the other drection and stay in the sunlight?

  4. Verne/Nellie Bly/Around the World in 80 Days by dpbsmith · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You're probably thinking of journalist Nellie Bly (pseudonym of Elizabeth Jane Cochrane), who left New York on November 14, 1889 and returned on January 25, 1890, beating Phileas Fogg's fictional journey by over a week. Phileas Fogg was a character in Jules Verne's novel "Around the World in 80 Days," published in 1872.

    [now drifting irremediably OT] "Around the World in 80 Days" was a hell of a good movie, based on Verne's novel, which was released in 1956. It was filmed in Todd-AO--one of a handful of movies filmed in that process. It was spectacular and gorgeous and a lot of fun to watch. It had quite a cast, David Niven as Phileas Fogg and Cantinflas as Passepartout. Only bad part was that the theme, which was quite catchy, had become a hit tune and had been played on the radio so often that by the time I saw the film--this was in the days when movies stayed in theatres for more than a couple of weeks, and in the case of Cinerama and Todd-AO spectaculars it could have been months--everybody was thoroughly sick of the theme music.

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