Solar powered Solar Impulse aircraft successfully completed its first flight

Today, on April 7, the first test flight of a manned aircraft powered by solar energy was successfully conducted in Switzerland. Solar Impulse was tested at the military airbase of the city of Payern. The Solar Impulse unit is one of the attempts to bring aviation into the era of renewable energy sources.

The test flight of this aircraft is the realization of seven-year work on the project of the famous test pilot Bertrand Piccard and his associate engineer Andre Borschberg. Today, this unusual machine (almost) silently circled at an altitude of 1200 meters for two hours in the sky of Switzerland. The wingspan of the aircraft is 63.5 meters, weight about 1600 kg. The aircraft is equipped with 4 electric engines, with a capacity of 10 hp. each. Energy is produced by 12 thousand photovoltaic cells located on the wings of the aircraft. Also on the plane installed lithium-polymer batteries weighing 400 kg. The flight speed is about 40 km / h. Thus, in the future it is planned to carry out a “uninterrupted” flight: the plane must fly all day, accumulating solar energy, and at night - to continue flying on batteries.
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This is how developer Bertrand Piccard presented his project at the last showroom at Le Bourget:

The Solar Impulse project is a reason to mobilize the search for experts in the field of creating vehicles on renewable energy sources. The goal is not just to make something out of the ordinary. The goal is to make something unusual, to show that you can fly around the globe using only solar energy ... What you can do is fly nonstop day and night. We want to show that the problem of long-term development, new technologies, renewable energy sources, all these problems can be interesting, exciting and even exciting. We want to tell people that through our agency in the Solar Impulse adventure everyone can participate.

Test pilot Markus Sherdel, who piloted the aircraft, checked the conformity of the model’s work with the simulated flight simulator. He also checked how an unusual aircraft "listens" to the landing approach and turns.

Solar Impulse will have to organize a 36-hour non-stop flight this summer. And the final point, you can say “a start in life” of this project, will be a 5-stage flight around the Earth. But, in anticipation, engineers will conduct tests for at least two more years.

UPD : Added video. Loud noise in the middle - the noise from a helicopter, not Solara :)


Presentation from the “author” of the aircraft:

thx, vsviridov