FOCUS – “Solar Impulse” project. An experimental solar powered plane landed safely Thursday in Switzerland after completing a record 26-hour long flight. Being able to fly at night is a key step for the “Solar Impulse” team towards flying around the globe using only solar energy. Interview with team chief Bertrand Piccard.
Let’s all hope it works fine into speedy productions!!
@elpadroney Yeah it works and I’ve got it since the early 90s, same one!!! Just multiply it and magnify it, lots of friends of mine run huge gyms with solar panels all year round!! People have sailed from France to NZ on wind and solar… still do… search it (sailing solar) yacht solitaire race… it’s been done 5 years ago…
@DebbCa you’re comparing your calculator to aviation? LOL?
@elpadroney my calculating machine works on solar since the early 90s, even when it’s cloudy… and it’s never cloudy enough up there… beyond the clouds
SUPER!! Long over due!!
@elpadroney Nope… it charges the batterys from the sun, how you think it flied in the night?… -_-‘
… [;)]
CLOUD = FUCKED
Human-carrying solar-powered airplanes have been around for almost 30 years. Solar Challenger flew from Paris to London in early 1980s, with solar only, no storage batteries at all (unlike Solar Impulse.) Eric Raymond flew Sunseeker across USA in the 1990s, and just this last year flew all over Europe, including a flight of ten hours ascending to 21,000+ feet. The QinetiQ Zephyr solar-powered aircraft flew for 82 hours in 2008. Solar Impulse is big, costly, inspiring only to the uninformed.
@TheVMFA333 You are paying lotsa taxes on oil aren’t you? You won’t be paying that anymore if we get a cleaner way to energize power, and no spills in the Ocean that cost a lot too!!
The old guy is totally off, that’s what people said about telephones and the Internet!!
BRAVO!!!! Best of luck!!!
This is awesome And it would be great in the future if large airliner jets like boeing and airbus could abapt to this technology. It would reduce the fuel the plane consumes and also if the plane runs out of fuel it could back up to the solar energy.
@conglomerate8 He also said “I don’t know, it’s not my field”. And simply enough, it proves you can get enough juice during the day to fly through the night, which hasn’t been done before… this isn’t a test to see if solar can replace oil in 10 years.
The world’s most efficient solar cells are only 14% efficient. A lot of free energy falls on our heads, it’s just a matter of time before the technology catches up. And cool projects like this one help raise awareness if nothing else.
sun tax’ will be next
A really good example of how the media can hype things up without a scientific understanding of matters. And then the professor said:
“I am afraid it doesn’t prove much of anything” -Prof.