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Solar Impulse 2 Breaks Three Records En Route To Hawaii
Zothecula writes: Solar Impulse 2 has started smashing records even before the longest leg of its round-the-world flight is complete. At around three quarters of the way to its next touch down in Hawaii, the single-pilot aircraft has broken the world records for longest distance and duration for solar aviation, with the record for longest ever solo flight of any kind thrown in for good measure.
It seems that in the modern era of flight, with high tech radio and navigation equipment, and modern weather forecasting, that solo flight isn't quite the feat it used to be. Not to say that this is easy, but it doesn't seem like it is the risky endeavour it used to be, either.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Seriously?
I'm not the only one getting occasional pop up ads for Kroger on the slashdot home page, am I?
Records are almost always broken due to advances in technology, or at least knowledge. Better equipment or better training are consequences of improved knowledge. But it still counts. Even track records are due to better shoes, and new knowledge of how to train the human machine. The four minute mile was once the holy grail of track, now it is routinely run under 4 minutes. Technology plus knowledge.
If you think that you're entirely fucking stupid. There are any number of things that can go wrong with an aircraft, and any number of ways you could die.
You sound like one of those fucking idiots who sits in front of a boxing match and laments how you could do a much better job than one of the fighters because it's all so easy.
You must be a lot of fun at parties. Or maybe you never get invited for some reason?
"round-the-world flight"? Wake me when a solar plane actually does that.
I don't care about a plane making a series of relatively short flights under optimal conditions (daylight), and I don't see why anyone else does either.
This is no more a "round-the-world" flight than if they had taken off in Nevada and circled a rock in the desert from sunrise to sunset for a few days in a row.
See that "Preview" button?
Really? New shoes make you run faster? Physical speed & endurance records are usually broken because of psychology. When the Kenyans started competing in marathons, they weren't winning because of their shoes or because of the teams of scientists training them back home. Often they literally had neither shoes nor coaches.
For any particular record it's easy to point to the shoes or some special training technique to explain what put them over the top. But if you look at the evolution of how any particular record is repeatedly moved over time, it quickly becomes apparent that technology isn't worth nearly as much as we thought it did. And psychology becomes one of the most important critical factors, if not _the_ most important. People train and gauge their progress by what they believe is possible and achievable.
Where technology (i.e. shoes, training, etc) really shines is in preventing injuries. But the time, place, and participants of record-breaking events are mostly anomalous. I doubt the pace of record breaks would slow much if we went back to the prevalence of injuries of 50 years ago, _presuming_ there wasn't a concomitant _psychological_ impact which dissuaded athletes from trying so hard. There are over 7 billion people on this planet, more than enough fodder to throw at breaking records.
Does it count as a record ?
I get that you're a steaming pile of shit that is disconnected from reality, but there really isn't a reason to showcase it.
Birds too fly around the world using clean solar energy. Arctic tern fly twice a year
half the globe with no huge ground navigation and support team
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_tern
Really? New shoes make you run faster?
How about new suits make swimmers swim faster? https://theconversation.com/fast-suits-and-olympic-swimming-a-tale-of-reduced-drag-and-broken-records-7960
Its one of very few solar powered manned aircraft to have ever flown, of course its going to be breaking records. That "longest ever solo flight" is less impressive when you consider that it HAS to be flown by a single person because built as flimsily as it is it can't handle the weight of a second person. And I am wondering if it is pushing for another record, longest time ever transit time for an aircraft. It left the start on March 9th 2015 and won't get back there until sometime in August. That's almost 5 months, your average commercial jet could make that trip in a couple days. Heck an unpowered balloon circumnavigated the planet in about 20 days and it didn't need to stop a dozen times. Its an achievement to be sure, but not the most practical that I've ever seen.
i don't think it's even psychology or training programmes, it's the extreme tails of human genetic ability, and finding those really really fucking rare individuals who have the traits necessary to break rcords.
If a sport becomes popular (basketball in the USA, track in Jamaica), more individuals are drawn to those activities. And as a result the odds of finding someone who's genetically gifted for that event increase.
Human beings are not different in a genetic sense before or after Bannister broke the 4 minute mile barrier; what has changed is a wider pool of people competing.
I imagine must take André Borschberg discipline to concentrate on flying and make a good landing after all this time. Then be able get a hot shower and a good meal while sitting at the table!
mfwright@batnet.com
Running a 4 minute mile isn't actually all that hard if you're in shape. I've been a lifelong cyclist--not even a runner in particular--and if I want to run a 4 minute mile, I can do it. I've done two of them back to back in 8 minutes. Sure, I'm pretty much throwing up all over and coughing my lungs out and I feel like shit for the next day or two, but I *can* do it.
So why do people think this is some crazy difficult thing? We expect 17 year old boys to run a 6:06 mile (according to the President's Challenge).