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Solar-Powered Plane Makes First Successful Flight
lilbridge writes "The Solar Impulse, a solar-powered plane covered in 12,000 solar cells, took its maiden flight today in Switzerland. The plane stayed aloft for 87 minutes, performing test maneuvers as well as completing a successful takeoff and landing. With the first test flight behind them, the developers can focus on gearing up for their around-the-world solar powered flight set for 2012."
Would they be more likely to try to fly West and keep the sun or fly East to have to run shorter lengths of time on batteries?
Why is this under Hardware?
K Man
That's pretty bold of them, attempting a round the world solar powered flight test during the Apocalypse. God speed.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Worst. Redeye. Ever...
I get the same giddy enthusiasm that I got back in the '80's with the Voyager.
But that is a very interesting question about which direction they would fly.
I would venture they might take tradewinds/jet stream into account, perhaps some thermal updrafts too, over merely following the sun.
--alop
Does it store enough energy so it can fly late evening or during rain?
Partly cloudy with a 100% chance of crash.
Wow, this thing is actually piloted by a human. I thought it was autonomous at first.
What we need is a solar-powered plane capable of safely carrying a couple dozen people 500 miles.
This represents the first solar-powered flights ever. Not the plane in this article.
I guess we've forgotten:
From the article:
Really? And this is impressive how? Seven years to reinvent existing technology? Puh-lease.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
The article says the plane averages 44mph (70kph). At that rate it will take about 24 days to circle the earth if they tried it in a single flight. Hopefully they will be able to get a little more speed before they try that.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
but how much did it cost?
it didnt say that in TFA
Secret labs are working on a stealth version that flies exclusively at night ... wait there's a flaw in there somewhere ... DOH!
And for a round the world flight, I'll definitely need one of those in-seat video whats its and some stiff drinks. I'll bet the emergency videos are really tedious. *sniff*
As one of the designers of the system, I have just this to say... gosh, we never thought of that. Looking at the designs again in light of your insightful, informed comments it's clear that we're all insane and or incompetent for designing this thing. We should have realized sooner, but I guess we were all to drunk/high to notice.
END SARCASM
This was designed by engineers with experience in the field. They know all about power to weight ratios, wingspans, and surface areas. The fact that you were able to come up with your objections with about 30 seconds of thought should make you realize that the engineers involved probably came up with the same concerns somewhere along the 7 year development cycle. As for it being miserable to fly... of course it is, this isn't a sport plane or even a transport plane, it's a proof of concept at best (and I don't really see how the concept could ever really be made into anything other than a gee whiz toy).
> A 15 horsepower plane is a really, really unsafe and miserable vehicle. It's
> just an underpowered and fragile disaster waiting to happen.
15hp continuous is not 15hp peak. It has batteries.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The first solar powered aircraft took wing in the 1600's. As told in The Mysterious Cities of Gold!
I fail to see what this has to do with iPad but now that YOU brought it up... Can I charge my iPad while flying in this thing?????
It says "as well as" not "then", if you're going to be a pedant at least get it right.
There are ways to get into the air other than performing a takeoff under your own power. Perhaps you're the one without the brain.
The plane stayed aloft for 87 minutes, performing test maneuvers as well as completing a successful takeoff and landing.
Gosh, that is novel. So first it flies for 87 minutes, does several maneuvers and THEN even manages a successful takeoff. Didn't see that one coming. I thought it had crashed on takeoff, but no.
Pedantic? You bet.
It as bad as, "he died from his injuries which are believed to have been lethal". No kidding.
Less is more editors. Some of us can read between the lines, especially when they are written in editor crayon. What next, "the red firetruck was red"?
You must be a lot of fun at parties.
Did it not cross your mind that there was the possibility that such a plane was dropped from a carrier aircraft, and hence it was necessary to specify in the article that this thing took off under its own steam?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I don't see any reason for the vituperation. I did not attack the designers, I just mentioned some obvious facts to compensate for people's superficial understanding of flying objects. Slashdot tends to be a bit too gee-whizzy in its enthusiasms. I think there's room and need for a little factual balance.
It's just an underpowered and fragile disaster waiting to happen.
Saying this about a project an engineer has devoted 7 years of their life to is an attack on that engineer. It implies that they don't know what they're doing, that they're uninformed, that they're idiots. Thinking that you can outsmart someone who is demonstrably more knowledgeable and experienced about the subject (unless of course you happen to have a solar powered plane in your garage) insults that person.
I think there's room and need for a little factual balance.
And you did a fantastic job of failing to provide any.
Saying the plane is a "disaster waiting to happen" is wrong, stupid, and yes, an insult to the designers for implying they'd make something that some random /.er can see in two seconds is going to be brought out of the air by rain.
Oh lol right, you're Ancient Hacker, the guy who trolls by claiming to be a 'hacker' who is nearly universally wrong on every technical subject.
The enemies of Democracy are
>15hp continuous is not 15hp peak. It has batteries.
Yep, and it's going to need them for situations like takeoff, climb, rain, downdrafts, clouds, night, or icing.
But that means the rest of the time it has *less* than 15hp to work with if it's going to use some of its sun power to recharge the batteries. No free lunch.
The plane stayed aloft for 87 minutes, performing test maneuvers as well as completing a successful takeoff and landing.
Gosh, that is novel. So first it flies for 87 minutes, does several maneuvers and THEN even manages a successful takeoff. Didn't see that one coming. I thought it had crashed on takeoff, but no.
The expression "as well as" does not imply when this successful take off occurred within those 87 minutes. Reading between the lines as you stated and applying a touch of logic would imply that the take off was the first thing to happen within the time mentioned. Also, just because an airplane is capable of powered flight, does not necessarily make it capable of an unassisted take off. If only 87 minutes of powered flight was mentioned, the plane could have been dropped from a balloon and crashed into a barn at the end of its flight. If you are going to be pedantic, at least be thorough.
Then what would have made sense was to mention that, the plane was not dropped from a carrier aircraft and was able to take off and land on it own.
Just saying "completing a successful takeoff and landing" makes not much sense.
You already averaged the available solar power over the entire day to get that 15hp number, so no, idiot, when the sun is shining they'll have less than 48hp if they spend some to charge the batteries. Fuck you're stupid.
Why are you even defending yourself? Grow some thicker skin.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
The plane stayed aloft for 87 minutes, performing test maneuvers as well as completing a successful takeoff and landing.
I assumed the editor knows nothing about what the journalist is writing about. Usually, this is a correct assumption. In fact usually journalists know nothing about what they are writing about. He probably "corrected" it from "successful landing and takeoff" to make it sound better. What they were dancing around was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch-and-go_landing
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Pedantic? You bet.
No, not really.
What passes for pedantry on /. has really gone down hill over the years in my crotchety old opinion. It's gone from nitpicking the usage of words that actually have highly specific technical definitions that it actually makes sense to be pedantic about, to trying to find the stupidest way to fail to understand everyday English sentences.
The enemies of Democracy are
Moreover, what kind of elite engineer spends time on Slashdot flaming people? WTF? Don't you have something exciting to do? You sure you're an engineer and not some kind of coffee-fetcher or janitor on the solar plane project?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Not saying there is a free lunch, but with the light weight and wingspan it has, it has a 40:1 Glide Ratio so if I power up my engines to climb really high. This extra altitude becomes potential energy that I can play out at a 40 to 1 ratio, 40 miles travelled forward for every mile I drop in altitude. Since its travelling ~44 mph, that's about an hours worth of travel just on gliding, can an hour's worth of charge make up for the energy spent gradually climbing 1 mile in altitude?
Do you climb during the brightest overhead sunlight?
I can't find the place where you calculated the available sunlight, but did you include the fact days are appreciably longer with stronger sunlight above 35,000 ft?
This thing is nearly as big as a bomber. Seems to me the square-cube law (with power going with square and weight to be flown going with cube) would favor smaller machines - unless the density of the solar cells combined with a fixed thickness, and/or the weight of the control computer and hardware, imposed a limit.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Wouldn't it be better to go with an all-wing design to maximize the surface exposed to the sun?
Riiiight. And then you'd be complaining about the redundancy of saying that it wasn't dropped from a carrier plane, it would have been easier to just say that the plane took off itself (which is what TFA actually says).
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It's not good until it can also be driven on the roads. I WANT MY FLYING CAR.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"It implies that they don't know what they're doing, that they're uninformed, that they're idiots."
it took 7 years to hook up a solar panel to a cereal box glider that has no practical use or intended future application
how about doing something useful?
I would have thought this post to be hilariously cynical, except that it's attacking a valid piece of information - not all alternative aircraft takeoff under their own power.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
No, it doesn't really do that. His comment may have been blunt, rude even, but there's no evidence that he was attacking the engineers personally, only the project's effectiveness in developing a practical application.
Don't get me wrong. I agree with you. His comment was in poor taste. But strictly speaking, nothing he said is an affront to you or your considerable achievement. You're reading too much into it. Maybe he really did mean it the way you interpreted it, but you should try to avoid getting this offended until you know for sure that personal attack was intended.
That said, congratulations on your work. I look forward to the day that this technology matures into practical applications. :)
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
>Saying the plane is a "disaster waiting to happen" is wrong, stupid, and yes, an insult to the designers for implying they'd make something that some random /.er can see in two seconds is going to be brought out of the air by rain.
I'm sure the designers did not intentionally make something so un-airworthy-- they're just constrained by the very low power available. You can't change the basic amount of power available, so you have to compromise on everything else. The wing is going to have to be long and huge, both for solar collection area and to get a low wing-loading, good glide ratio and low stall speed. It's going to have to be built as lightly as possible, which means it can't stand much stress. Planes that are certified have to be capable of +3 and -1G stress, but one suspects this plane has much narrower margins. That makes the plane much more susceptible to damage from turbulence and limits its maneuverability.
With a low landing speed and long wings, it's going to be in deep doo-doo when landing in a cross-wind. Your really maneuverable planes are limited to crosswinds on the order of 25% of landing speed. This plane is NOT very maneuverable, and cannot be banked very much on approach due to its long wings. That probably limits it to a cross-wind component of maybe 10%. With its low landing speed, that means anything over 4MPH is going to be a HUGE problem.
I'm sure the designers did the best they could within the power and weight limits. But still the best you're gonna get is not going to ever be certifiable as an airplane.
Ok. I clicked over to their link and the images show just another impractical experiment. All this solar vehicle stuff makes great tinkering, but I would have thought universities, innovators, etc would be building practical ideas by now. Why is it that we still see grand experiments instead of real cars, trucks, planes, boats, whatever, all capable of replacing an existing transportation vehicle? This all tells me real solar powered vehicles are decades away. I suspect some big piece of technology is missing/impractical and we're wasting our money and time on it. Sort of like "the fuel cell is the future" story I heard and have been waiting to see materialize, for 40 years now.