π
2013-04-18 01:01
in Flying, Nflying
I had heard about Solar Impulse, the first solar plane that can not only fly during the day on solar energy, but can also store energy in the batteries so that it can fly at night too, but it was nice to have Bertrand and André (both Swiss French) come visit us and come talk about their work so far, and their plans.
I had no idea that their huge plane could fly on just 4 10HP motors. That is less than a fourth of the power than the average US car has, or my new car has 15 times more power than their entire plane! Note that it is a super efficient glider that only flies at 25-30kts (i.e. a very slow sleep and wind currents can push you much faster than it can propel itself). This is not about to take passengers across the Atlantic quite yet, but the idea is to work on milestones one piece at a time.
So far, they have flown over 24H by charging batteries during the day, climbing high, and gliding slowly down (1ft/sec) from very high altitude at night while using batteries to sustain flight when they are low enough that they should use power to maintain altitude.
Next, they're planning on flying across the US and their end goal is being able to fly around the world.
Bertrand and André, interviewed by Pablo, one of our local pilots
the solar panels from sunpower are also super thin and super light
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