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Solar Craft Flies Through Two Nights
An anonymous reader writes "A solar-powered, unmanned craft has flown for 54 hours — a record for both unmanned aerial vehicles and solar craft. None before has managed to store enough solar energy to fly through more than one night. There is also a video showing the 18m carbon fiber wing craft being launched."
This BBC article has good info.
It should not be a surprise that the Global Hawk record did not stand. Look at the two craft. If a global hawk hit the zephyr it probably wouldn't even notice.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Sure if it could go 1000 mph, that would work fine. It might be tricky to break the sound barrier with a solar-powered craft though.
Sure, if it's fast enough. Solar powered aircraft tend to be driven by large, slow-turning propellers. Even commercial jet aircraft typically can't beat the Sun from the eastern US to the west, so I doubt we'll be seeing such a solar powered aircraft anytime soon.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
From Wikipedia:
"Engouh Solar Energy (ESE) is a newly-discovered form of solar energy capable of lighting even the darkest parents' basement to the point where the average nerd can neither see his keyboard nor the inevitable typos he'll make on internet discussion boards."
it's good for learning things to be used in later vehicles that will accomplish, you know, stuff
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
What the hell kind of spelling mistake is that? A typo?
Obviously solar panels feed it to maintain energy stores; however since it must store this energy in a battery of some sort, is it required that the batteries be empty when launched? If not, what's to stop someone with a major pile of pre-charged solar-rechargeable batteries from tacking one solar panel on top & calling it a solar vehicle even if it could never fully charge those during use? Not accusing these folks of doing that but just curious about how they classify solar vehicles...
digital artist, 3D animator, web designer, and otherwise technological creative type....
Depending on the time of year it wouldn't have to do that... you could have it do loops around the north or south pole at a much higher latitude and still get sunshine 24/7 (or damn near close) and not have to travel as fast as they would near the equator to keep up with the sun.
Can this thing seriously carry any cargo that is worthwhile?
Well if you're in the used battery business, this thing is a gold mine!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
A series of halogen lights mounted along the wings are illuminated at night to power the solar array.
Storing energy is the key. You might be able to store it in batteries like these people have done, or store it in your altitude and just let it glide down at night -- but that would require a really efficient plane. This looks to be a really efficient plane, but it's obviously not quite efficient enough to do that.
That would be cool if they'd try to fly it across the Atlantic -- it would be the first electric plane to do so, and the first solar powered plane to do so. TAM 5 took 39 hours to cross the Atlantic, and this plane was up longer than that -- but it's a lot slower too. TAM 5 averaged about 48 mph, and I'll bet this plane is less than half that.
There are some problems with that idea.
That would work only in the summer.
That would be handy only if you needed that aircraft over the polar region during the summer months.
Then you have the really big problem...
The solar panels are mounted on the wings... The sun at the poles never climbs very high in the sky so the panels would have to be mounted on the sides of the aircraft. That would limit your collecting area a lot and or produce a lot of drag.
So the idea while interesting at first glance really is far from practical.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Looked at your /. username lately?
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
I have an idea- how about mounting some LEDs on the wings which could help boost the amount of light the solar panels recieve? You could keep going for like, forever.
Not only did I submit this story with no type-o's, last night, but I also made reference to the previous solar powered flight that lasted 2 nights, which this submission implies never happened before.
Though the previous one also did gliding/non-powered flight part of the time. Still, up for 48 hours.
The best part is, when the story was first posted, it was "engouh" until it was corrected to read "enouhh."
Legalize it.
Mathematically that's not quite true. If it had some amount of initial charge it could be using some percentage of that in order to make it through each night. Perhaps that number is 50% each night :)
I don't know if that is the case here.. just saying that it doesn't necessarily follow that the plane can stay up indefinitely.
Lisa, in this house we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics!
Check out this press release.
AC Propulsion said that they could do it indefinitely, but their pilots got worn out.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Like many space and exotic aircraft, it must have to expend a lot of energy to get to its cruising altitude. Once that's done, conditions should become easier. Would it be considered 'cheating' to launch such a perpetual flying machine with an assistance device? That could be either disposable batteries that are jettisoned when discharged, or some chemcal rocket engine, or a jet engine, or have it launched from an aircraft.
Insolation is going to me much better at high altitudes. I just hope the photovoltaic cells are designed to take advantage of the increased amount of energy available in the UV spectrum. How about filling the free space in the wings with hydrogen? That might help lift a little, at least from the ground. However, there would have to be some way of dealing with the reduced pressure at operational altitude.
There's been a lot of interesting improvements in PV efficiency lately. However, most of these seem to only happen when the cell is operated at insolation far above normal. These are obtained by focusing the sunlight. Unfortunately, all of the technologies I know of which could do this are heavier than simply adding more, less efficient cells which operate at normal insolation or the slight improvement that high-atmosphere flight provides.