Slashdot Mirror
Solar Impulse Airplane Makes Public Debut In Paris
dsmendes writes "The Solar Impulse airplane made its debut at the Paris Air Show with a 20 minute public voyage powered by nothing but solar cells, with 12,000 cells on the wings powering 4 10-horsepower motors."
The Solar Impulse airplane made its debut at the Paris Air Show with a 20 minute public voyage powered by nothing but solar cells
- well, it's powered by nothing but solar cells and an average size star, which is about 1,000,000 km/diameter, hanging above our heads. If the Sun could have and express feelings, would it be bothered to know, we think it's nothing? What if it felt it was unappreciated and decided to leave (or at least to leave France)? Let them try and power those planes by nothing and solar cells without the Sun :)
You can't handle the truth.
"perpetual" will only work if it can stay in the air in the dark using additional power it gathered during the day. Otherwise it has to be able to keep up with the sun... I read that it has batteries, but if it has enough batteries to store enough charge to stay in the air through ~12 hours of darkness then we could ditch the solar cells and run planes on batteries and just charge them when they land.
Otherwise it has to be able to keep up with the sun...
I feel like they could get some military funding for this thing by saying that they want to upgrade it to "outrun the terminator."
It looks, from a cursory glance, that the manufacturers intend to do just that. I quote: "The Solar Impulse solar plane, which in 2010 demonstrated it could harvest enough energy by day to stay aloft all night, will soon take its first international flight. The team will be headed by Bertrand Piccard, the man who piloted the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and will leave from Brussels on May 2nd." This, on , posted 4/29/11. Hats off to the engineers and scientists behind this.
This is what this plane is doing. It charges its batteries during the day, while flying, and discharges them during the night. It has already flown during a complete day-night cycle.