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Solar-Powered Plane Making 24-hour Flight
After technical glitches threw a kink in its schedule, Solar Impulse, the solar-powered plane first mentioned here in June, has finally taken off. Reader asukasoryu writes "An experimental solar-powered plane took off from western Switzerland on Wednesday for a 24-hour test flight — a key step in a historic effort to one day circle the globe using only energy collected from the sun. The plane left Payerne airfield shortly before 7 a.m. after overcoming an equipment problem that delayed a previous attempt. Although the goal is to show that emissions-free air travel is possible, the team says it doesn't see solar technology replacing conventional jet propulsion any time soon. Instead, the project is designed to test and promote new energy-efficient technologies." You can follow the flight's progress at the project's site.
Fossil fuels store ancient solar energy...perhaps the poster meant "with only energy recently collected from the Sun"?
What if a solar plant produced gasoline as its output...would that count as "solar powered"?
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
I submitted an article recently about that very thing: C02 + Solar Power = Petrol or petrol like substance. (in theory at least) http://www.hindustantimes.com/Soon-you-can-fill-your-car-with-petrol-made-from-CO2/Article1-567293.aspx
We’re all counting on you.
P.S.,
This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
If not, perhaps Icarus? j/k
Life is not for the lazy.
It's nice to see the plane finally able to take off some many people have worked very hard at this project and I am glad to see them finally have there success. I always like to see these history making days that you will remember forever.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
For this aircraft's maiden flight, there should be an online vote in which a song is selected to accompany its sun-powered ascendency to the skies. I will submit an adaptation of the Katrina in the Waves timeless classic 'Walking on Sunshine':
'Flying on Sunshine'
I used to think when you made me I'd crash for sure
And I just cant wait till the day when you charge me a little more
Now everytime I go for the horizon, gotta hold myself down
Cos I just wait till you touch me when rising around
I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh!
I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh!
I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh!
and don't I charge good!
Hey, alright now!
Don't I charge good!
Hey yeh!
I used to think maybe you warmed me, now I know that its true
but I don't want to spend all my life, basking in you
now I don't want u there for the weekend
not everyday , no no no
I said baby I just want to go back to my hangar and I wanna stay
Woah Yeah!
I'm flying on sunshine , wooah
I'm flying on sunshine, woooah
I'm flying on sunshine, woooah
and don't it feel good!!
Hey , alright now ,oh yeh
and don't it feel good!!
hey yeh
Sun! Take it away!
(The sun's rap solo)
Baby I know I brighten your day, with my rays,
Just like I do most peoples' holidays
But one thing I know, and I think you know too
Is that me, the sun; I'm real good for you
Shining; blinding; setting; risin'
I give it to you just how you like it plane!
So if you takin' off today, just remember to look
for me in the sky, or else you in trouble like this poetry.
It's fantastic that air travel can now be powered using solar enery alone, but I think that our real emphasis needs to be on needs to be the successful implementation of renewable energy sources in automobiles. Sure, planes use a lot of fuel, but I'm sure that the millions of cars and trucks driven every day are burning through our resources much faster.
Sent from my iPhone 5
Am I the only one with "Around the World" stuck in their head right now?
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
At the point of final energy usage? Or at the point of original manufacturing? Or at the point of energy generation for the manufacturing plant?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
This plane is not emissions-free, since there were some in its manufacture, which must be divided over its lifetime, and then whatever emissions are involved in the disposal/recycling of the craft as well. Lower-emissions, sure, but not emissions-free.
I had my hopes high for a moment - I imagined a huge plane the size of a Boeing 747.. silly me ;-)
This is an excellent start though...
I'm sorry, but I can't really tell if that was a serious paranoid rant or a satirical paranoid rant. Either way though, I am impressed that you managed to like the thermal properties of cities with mammalian extinction, a DSM recognized disorder, and Yahoo News.
Either "bravo" or "loosen up the tinfoil hat dude" are appropriate here. I just can't figure out which to save my life.
Technology is as advanced as it will ever be! We do not need people experimenting with new things just to see if it can be done, we need people to continue buying and consuming existing technologies in order to make sure the products and industries we have now continue to be profitable without change. Change is bad. People who try new things are bad. Bad bad bad.
I thought they got rid of that emails to editors thing...oh it's a comment.
was this post generated automatically with some sort of markov chain or are you just really crazy
many are unable to see the connection(s)
Congratulations to those who got it working!
Hi, AC here, as a veteran I'd like to introduce you to a concept called the "reply button." Try it out some time!
I have issues with the project web site and the lack of information. One of my main issues is that the site touts the use of new technology but nowhere does it explain exactly what "new" technology it uses. What is it's cruising speed? If it is over 50Kmph I would be surprised.
Another important issue is that it never states is the batteries were full or empty at takeoff and how much of that battery power was used to get the plane to altitude. What if the energy used was only 20% of capacity and the main method of altitude gain was thermals and mountain wave? Recharging that 20% should not be an issue. What then happens if the plane requires 80% of the battery capacity to stay up over night? They would last one night but run out half way through the second night.
I always love obvious spin. When asked when the non stop around the world flight will happen the site says "60 years between the first world tour with stopovers and the first world tour without stopovers in a traditional motor airplane". On the other hand, when asked if solar airplanes will replace conventional airplanes they state "when the great Wright brothers got their first plane to fly a distance of 200 meters in 1903, could they have imagined that 66 years later, two men would walk on the moon?" The spin is that from the first flight to the moon landing there has always been increases in speed, capacity and duration aloft. This technology turn back the clock to a low speed single seater aircraft and assumes we can still advance as far.
An economically viable passenger plane would be required to carry passengers, be pressurized and go much faster; I am sure no one would want to take 100 hours to go from London to Newyork. This may require an energy output a hundred times that of the Solar Impulse. The current plane is already has a wing span of 63m. Even with a increase of solar panel efficiency to 80% that would require an increase in wing area by 25 times. That is one huge plane to carry a few people.
Today, gliders with no electric motors can stay aloft for extended periods of time. The gliding community has stopped tracking duration aloft records due to the dangers of exhaustion. Here are some other current glider records; altitude 12 637 m; distance 1078.2 km; speed over an out-and-return course of 1 000 km 133.89 km/h. What has been created is in effect a huge glider with a electric motor backup.
You can follow the Solar Impulse Twitter® stream here: http://bit.ly/bjE3D0 or here: http://bit.ly/bQswSH .
hmm..This is good news that we are developing something like this, but I would not feel safe in a solar powered plane.
Mother Waddles Car Donation Program
Ah, but...can it fly while slashdotted?
Look at the real time charts. By "real time" I mean what altitude, power and speed are NOW
How cool is that!
Irrationally, I feel safer in a sailplane than in a 747. But then I've been in the landing with the foam on the runway, and I'd rather be in something that's inherently airworthy and non-flam than in something that's a potential bomb.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I don't know about that. An airfoil type plane, not happening, but a solar electric dirigible, cruising at a slower speed but in comfort..there might be a lot of people opt for a longer duration "air cruise" across oceans, etc. Pretty big surface area on a blimp or dirigible for some thin film solar cells... As to "business travel", I am seriously disappointed that in 2010 we still have meatsacks traveling all over heck when teleconferencing can do the job. Same with meatsacks commuting daily to *go sit in front of a keyboard and monitor* when they could be doing that in the home office and skip the commuting part.
The reason I am not impressed is that there is no new technology in the aircraft. We already have solars cells, electric motors,ultralight construction and high aspect ratio sailplanes. A competent aeronautical engineer could have done the design and shown that it could easily work. Sure it is cool but it does not advance technology.
Sure they can chase the sun to the west around the earth, but they may run into issues flying intercontinental in the opposite direction.
Well, I guess you didn't know, but there are still a lot of trans Atlantic cruises going on. Just google it (I just did, exists a plenty). And a lot of people have longer than two weeks off, heck, a lot of people with cash to burn are this thing called "retired" now and can take all the time they want.
We can't settle this now because we have no long range zeppelin service, but my guess is when/if it happens again they'll be sold out all the time.
As to your teleconferencing, I thought all you VIP IT biz guys used multiple screens now, yes? I read that here all the dang time, you just ain't cool unless you have your own server setup and multiple screens (multiple good big screens equals cost of one airline ticket). So, one screen shows the whiteboard, one screen shows the crowd, one shows the presenter, etc. It's called normal camera work, pros do it all the time. On TV and stuff, maybe you've seen that, how they can magically shift around and focus on different things, or even use more than one camera at a time.....
This is a tech board, you are arguing against tech that exists now, saying it is impossible or something to be used more, instead of moving sacks of water and protein around expensively. Nuts. I mean dang, I'm an old curmudgeon and you got me beat with the entrenched luddism from the last century, ha! I'm just saying a lot of so called "necessary" biz travel..isn't, along with a lot of normal day to day commuting. 60 years ago and earlier, sure, necessary, but not so much today. There's mostly inertia against using the web more, that's all, but it's changing.
Consider solar/electric civilian spotter drones in fire season. An aircraft doesn't need to be an SR-71 to be useful. A "huge glider with a electric motor backup" is useful if it's cheap enough.
A composite ultralight aircraft with a wingspan similar to a jumbo jet covered in expensive solar cells does not sound cheap to me. Remember that this aircraft requires a large field to operate from. Oh yeah, considering the speed it could take hours to get to a fire.
BTW, there are already inexpensive drones available that can do that job.
Now that the flight is over, lets take a look at a few of the numbers from http://www.solarimpulse.com/nightFlights/charts.php.
1. They need a more accurate speed and altitude sensor. There are quite a few spikes in the charts. Some of them have "disappeared". They were probably fixed in the data by averaging.
2. They started with the battery 69% charged.
3. The low point in battery level was 46%
4. It took 7.5 hours to get to full charge.
5. When air temp decreased below 0 the efficiency of the solar cells also decreased dramatically.
6. For a 2.5 hour period when the engine power was at 4% with 0% solar charging the battery charge did not decrease; strange.
7. When the battery was used, it drained at about 10% per hour.
8. The airspeed was about 23kmph most of the time.