Solar-Powered Ultralight To Try 24-Hour Flight

blair1q writes "When the solar aircraft Solar Impulse lifts off from an airfield in Switzerland on a sunny day at the end of June, it will begin the first ever manned night flight on a plane propelled exclusively by power it collects from the sun. Former Swiss Air Force pilot Andre Borschberg and round-the-world balloonist Bertrand Piccard developed the aircraft, and Borschberg will be the pilot for this mission. 'The flight will require a lot of attention and concentration — the plane doesn't have an auto-pilot, it has to be flown for 24 hours straight.' For him, the most exciting part of the venture is 'being on the plane during the day and seeing the amount of energy increasing instead of decreasing as on a normal aircraft.'"

Comments

The danger of solar power

[For a Free Internet]

Today the answer to everything seems to be solar power. But before we all get swept up in this fad, let's consider. For every action, there is an equal opposite reaction, said Albert Einstien. Every time yu use up sun rays, you take away energy from the sun. Do these enviro-hippies want to burn out the source of all life and live on a dark ball of ice? They don't care, they are too hopped up on Italian marijuana to think about the consequences of their "innovations." Let's stick to what works, good, clean natural coal power. God bless America!

Re:The danger of solar power

[wisdom_brewing]

They're doing it now to avoid the sunspots of 2013 - http://www.physorg.com/news161026403.html

Re:The danger of solar power

[Rivalz]

Instead of Coal or Solar Power they should create a Boat that Sucks up the water out of the ocean and thanks to BP has oil particles mixed in a high enough concentration to run on a hybrid oil/ocean water mixture forever. Thanks BP!

Re:The danger of solar power

[Mister Whirly]

Are you referring to the Spocker?

Re:The danger of solar power

[karnal]

For every action, there is an equal opposite reaction, said Albert Einstien.

Newton's sitting in the corner glaring at you.

Re:The danger of solar power

[Ksevio]

One summer I was working at a college and was wearing a hard hat while I was going to check something at a construction site. As I was heading along a public street, some guy with a big beard and rainbow hat and shirt came up and started asking if I knew anything about solar power. I told him I did, and he worriedly asked if it was "sucking in the sun".

I told him that it was safe because it would be wasted if we didn't save it and he seemed very relieved that science wasn't going to use it all up. He promised to talk to me again so I quickly requested to work at a different site.

How about using thermals?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about soaring and using ridge lift? Ridge lift has been long used by glider pilots for cross-country flights. This planes seems to be a good enough sailplane. I has large aspect ratio wings and lift to drag ratio is probably decent as well, even though it does not look very streamlined, but it the ratio of the lift to drag that matters and this thing has a lot of lift.

Combined, solar and thermal energy (i.e. the energy of thermal air updraft) would yield a plane that could stay in the air forever.

Re:How about using thermals?

[vadim_t]

Thermal != geothermal.

Nobody said anything about digging holes, or setting up fires. There exist natural regions of hot and cold air in the atmosphere that gliders take advantage of.

Re:How about using thermals?

[AK Marc]

It's not a matter of temperature, but temperature difference. I bet they have thermals in the summer and the winter.

Re:How about using thermals?

[Vihai]

You are so wrong here! Switzerland is fantastic for soaring, *especially* in summer.

Re:How about using thermals?

[Gubbe]

What everyone seems to ignore is that ridge lift has little to do with thermals.
Thermals are streams of warmer air rising up through colder air and caused by temperature differences, just as the parent mentions.
Ridge lift on the other hand is caused by wind encountering a slope and having to move up to get over it, thus creating an upwards vector that can be used by gliders to soar.
The wind that creates ridge lift is of course ultimately caused by air moving in to balance pressure differences, which are formed by air being displaced by temperature differences, but that doesn't mean that ridge lift is the same thing as a thermal.

Re:How about using thermals?

[justleavealonemmmkay]

Well technically on a windless day, ridge lift has EVERYTHING to do with thermals

Oh god no

[MichaelSmith]

I had a peek at TFA so I could comment. This thing would fall apart in a thermal. Ridge lift means flying fast to avoid flying into the rotor behind the hill. Its not uncommon to pull a couple of Gs flying into and out of a thermal and this aircraft doesn't look up to it to me.

My guess is they are waiting for still air before they fly it. Look at the size of those control surfaces. Sure it will have a high LD but at 30 knots or so.

Re:Oh god no

[kyoorius]

Something that big and fragile will have to be launched in still air, but as the ground heats up in the afternoon, there will definitely be thermals popping off. Ridge lift is works down low, but will not likely be used in this mission (that would be cheating!). The thermals, however definitely will affect the flight. Up high (2000+ ft above the ground) there are often large patches of big lift and also sink (1000 feet per minute up or down is typical). The skill of the pilot's ability to read the ground and sky will play a large role in keeping the craft up in the air during the day. He will have to escape the sinking air and remain in the lift as long as possible. The night portion of the flight will probably the easy part - just coast around on battery until the 24 hr mark. The above information is common knowledge to all soaring pilots (which I am also myself). A few of my flying buddies have stayed up for 10 hours and flown 200+ miles on hang gliders - quite a feat accomplished without any motor or batteries. Given some decent pilot skill and the right weather conditions, the solar craft should have no problem accomplishing the task.

Official website

[space_in_your_face]

The Official Solar Impulse website at epfl

Manned missions are just ego-wanking...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I mind a bit of ego-wanking.

But human flight in this is limited by the pilot's endurance, so a theoretically indefinite duration is good for no more than 48 hours or so in practice.

The same concept, but with remote/autonomous* control, yields really indefinite-loiter UAVs -- a much more practical creature.

*Yes, I'm aware full autonomous control isn't feasible now, and begs for skynet jokes. But some automation for station-keeping without 100% human intervention is possible and highly desirable....

Re:Manned missions are just ego-wanking...

[Iamthecheese]

24 hours != indefinite. I didn't RTFA but I would bet my left testicle that it will start the flight with full batteries and end with nearly depleted ones. The REAL test will be when energy levels and consumables like lubricant are about the same before and after 24 hours in flight.

Re:Manned missions are just ego-wanking...

[Anonymous Coward]

24 hours != indefinite. I didn't RTFA but I would bet my left testicle that it will start the flight with full batteries and end with nearly depleted ones. The REAL test will be when energy levels and consumables like lubricant are about the same before and after 24 hours in flight.

FTFA: "Solar Impulse will lift off from an airfield in Switzerland, on a sunny day sometime at the end of June. It will then fly around, charging the solar cells on the plane's wings, in a bid to store enough energy for the electric motors to last until dawn... If it proves a success, the Solar Impulse team will attempt to go even further. The ultimate aim is to push the frontier of renewable solar energy. In two years' time, the plane will set off on its first manned transatlantic solar flight, followed in 2013 by an even more daring circumnavigation of the Earth."

Maybe you should bet less and read more.

No autopilot?

[excelsior_gr]

I can't believe that they couldn't allow even one of those inflatable ones because of the weight...

Re:24 hours straight? Dangerous!

[RMH101]

Yes, this occurred to me. Probably not legal for non-military purposes though as a) you've got to source them, and b) pilot a plane whilst using non-prescription drugs. I'm sure the local aviation authority would have something to say about the legality of the latter.

Ancestor of Jean Luc?

[antifoidulus]

I just have this to say to you Mr. Picard, "make it so!"

Re:What a feat!

[MadnessASAP]

How about a radio relay? Or weather monitoring? Hell those are the 2 blindingly obvious ones that I can think of in 30 seconds I`m sure anybody here could list off a dozen uses for these with a few minutes work.

Re:24 hours straight? Dangerous!

[wisdom_brewing]

I think the motivator of "If you fall asleep you die" should be sufficient to keep him alert...

And how will he stay awake?

[billius]

I'm guessing he's going to use the same method Superman uses to stay awake and vigilant all that time.

Re:What a feat!

[Alioth]

The Wright Flyer was hardly a practical invention, either. But if we'd just listened to the naysayers, we wouldn't make any progress at all.

A low power electric aircraft, even without the solar cells and a battery pack instead, would have a great deal of uses where local flying is needed - for example, traffic reporting, news gathering and reporting (replacing expensive, thirsty and (to many people) obnoxiously noisy helicopters), law enforcement, aerial photography, recreational flying, radio relay, fish spotting, pipeline patrol, powerline patrol.

Projects like this which push material and electrical power delivery technology may move us a step nearer to practical, usable low powered clean, quiet electric aircraft for many of these jobs.

One word it it's indeed possible ...

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

... it's magic!

Not in the sense it's something beyond the laws of Physics but something we could only dream of just dozens of years ago.

It's exciting to live in this era.

Re:Bad idea

[Flea of Pain]

No kidding, they had the option to have it flown by Capt. Piccard, and chose the other guy. No way this is going to end well...I bet the other guy even wears a red shirt.