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Solar Impulse Airplane To Launch First Sun-Powered Flight Across America
First time accepted submitter markboyer writes "The Solar Impulse just landed at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California to announce a journey that will take it from San Francisco to New York without using a single drop of fuel. The 'Across America' tour will kick off this May when founders Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg take off from San Francisco. From there the plane will visit four cities across the states before landing in New York."
At 43mph, they're entirely at the mercy of local weather conditions. And "without using a single drop of fuel"? Tish. Factor in the fuel used by the support crew as they fuss around it. Don't like that? Then let's see them do it without support.
Even with fantasy efficiency, there's no mass-to-surface-area that could make this a commercially viable form of transport, ever. It's a beautiful folly, and an impressive exercise in materials science, and should be enjoyed on that basis. The PV aspect is essentially a gimmick though.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
...since the plane doesn't have fuel it can't crash and burn. It can only crash.
But not as air transport. If it can fly without need for refuelling, it can stand in for a communications satellite, endlessly and automatically circling one spot above the cloud level
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Did Lindbergh, or Earhart do anything practical with their feats? Did Gagarin, or Glenn, or Armstrong?
Not really. But they did keep the public's mind on things which otherwise it may not have. This can be used as a diversion, but it can also be used to help drive technology forward.
Maybe some people decide to put solar panels on their house. Maybe it drives some investors imaginations into funding the technology (or the government) and advancing the art. Maybe some kid sees it and gets inspired. Years later he goes to Harvard and makes an advance that makes solar energy more feasible as an energy source.
My point is, you cannot sit in your basement being all cynical, stroking your neckbeard, and saying it doesn't work, so there is no point. People NEED to get out and try. They need to capture imaginations.
By the way, I do not mean to say that YOU have a neckbeard or live in a basement, but am talking about that general cynical attitude often found here. An attitude that I contribute to more often than I like to admit.
Silence is a state of mime.
Now we're talking.
Solar powered aircraft has been available for the better part of a century now. It's called sailplanes. And they're probably more practical.
Because turbines can be bought now, find me such a fuel cell that I can buy. Also storing H and O completely destroys the entire energy density storage of my plan. To make matters worse storing H2, is a huge PITA. It embrittles metal, leaks through everything and likes to pool in structures under roofs making it a hazard in buildings not designed for it.
http://www.solar-flight.com/sunseeker/index.html
During August of 1990, The Sunseeker crossed the country in 21 flights, with 121 hours in the air.
First this century, perhaps.
Oh no, the Apollo missions launched from a southerly location in the US to increase the boost from the earth's rotation! The worthless cheaters! We haven't really put a man on the moon until we've launched from Maine, and picked up burgers at a drive-through in California on the flight out!