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Solar Powered UAV to Set Aviation Endurance Record?
Iddo Genuth writes to mention that a group of Israeli students is hoping their latest unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will soon break the world aviation record for endurance that has stood for over 17 years. The piece features a short history of solar power aviation and an interview with the students.
This is why solar powered flight is important:
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"Called the Zephyr, it's an aircraft that can fly continuously using nothing but solar power and "low drag aerodynamics". The combination of solar panels on the upper wing surface and rechargeable batteries allows Zephyr to be flown for many weeks and even months. The first flight trial of the Zephyr were conducted recently by QinetiQ in White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
Two aircraft were flown for four and a half and six hours respectively, the maximum flight times permitted under range restrictions. The maximum altitude attained was 27,000 feet above sea level. The ultra-light aircraft is designed to fly at altitudes as high as 132,000 feet (25 miles/40km), above normal commercial air-lanes and most weather.
QinetiQ believes that stratospheric platforms will rapidly become commercially viable and revolutionize future communications. High altitude platforms of this sort could provide a cheaper alternative to satellites in remote areas and developing countries. They can also enable observation of natural disasters and humanitarian crises."
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/solar_pow
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This doesn't have to replace traditional fuels, it can supplement them.
While technically not impossible, it would be completely impractical.
Solar's strength is high and slow. High, because you're actually going to get more sunlight (power) as you climb, whereas combustion engines lose power as you climb due to thinning air. (One reason why Helios was pushing 100,000 feet.) Slow, because you're using an electric motor to turn a big, slow revving prop. (Props can't get anywhere close to mach without tremendous loss of efficiency.)
While in theory you could use the electic power to turn a ducted fan, it would never produce enough thrust to make up for it's drag and weight at airliner speeds.
Solar's niche is high altitude, slow speed and long endurance. It will have some neat uses, but there's not enough oomph for high speed or high payload applications like jetting to Vegas for the weekend.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Again, why can't you run your engines off jet fuel, and everything else (lights, radio, etc) from solar cells? Save some fuel in the process.
Same reason you don't have solar cells on your gasoline powered car powering your electrical system - because its waaayyyy cheaper to just let the engine turn a generator. Airliners also fly during the evening, at night, and at high latitudes where the sun's angle incidence is too low for the solar panel to produce meaningful power.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
A modern "Western" society (including Israel) is too advanced socially and culturally to deal with the inconvenient people the old-fashioned way — through massive killings, destruction, and/or religious conversions (the latter being the mildest form).
While undoubtedly a good thing, this inability is seen by some as dangerous (sometimes even fatal) weakness — the underdeveloped enemy usually has no such self-imposed limitations.
This article, however, reminds of the flip-side of the advanced society — the mind-boggling speed of technological and scientific progress, which will allow us to prevail without the above-mentioned ugliness. Israel, for example, will not need to "pull a Darfur", where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and raped, and millions driven out from their homes by the Arabs hordes unleashed by the government to suppress some insurrection or another...
Instead, Israel will be able to use these machines to target the real enemies, keeping the innocents alive, even if enraged.
Progress in weapons is a good thing — better weapons kill fewer people.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.