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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)
Wonderful, as a concept. But horrible as a vehicle.
Do the math. 60 meter wingspan times maybe 4 meter wing width gives you 240 square meters of solar cell area.
You get about 150 watts per square meter with the sun at right angles and no clouds. That's about 48 horsepower at best.
Now integrate that for a whole day and night and you have about 15 horsepower continuous.
A 15 horsepower plane is a really, really unsafe and miserable vehicle. It's just an underpowered and fragile disaster waiting to happen.
Even a light rain is going to bring it down.
I wish he pilot well and hope their parachute works.
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*
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"?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.