Solar plane sent to the daily flight

Today, just a few hours ago, an experimental solar-powered aircraft has been flown for 24 hours. Agree, rarely what modern aircraft can last a day in the air without refueling. And in our case, the fuel is not needed, the plane uses the "underworld" energy, which does not need to be saved. Flight details and design features of the aircraft itself - in continuation.

So, you know what the wingspan of our flying "child of the Sun"? As much as 80 meters. The total number of individual solar cells mounted on the wings and body of the aircraft is 12,000 (!), While the mass of batteries that will accumulate solar energy collected by batteries during the day is 500 kilograms.
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The solar giant climbed "on the wing" shortly before 7 am, from the airfield of the city of Paeren, Switzerland. Exactly a day later he should land there. Initially, the flight took place at an altitude of 3,000 meters, in order to avoid entering into turbulent flows over the Jura mountain range that is located in the west of the Swiss Alps.

After some time, the plane climbed to a height of 8.5 thousand meters, where it will be most of the flight time. According to the developers, the energy stored by the aircraft during the day should be enough for 7-8 hours of engine operation at night. But the solar energy of our aircraft should be more than enough, because it is high above the cloud cover, and the sun will supply it with energy from dawn to dusk.

“The goal of our project at the moment is to fly day and night without conventional fuel. This flight is critical, and will show the reliability and relevance of the entire project, ”says Bertrand Pickard, one of the creators of the aircraft.



Note that the plane is operated by an experienced pilot Andre Borschberg. Andre will decide for himself whether to continue flying at night, or still not risk it, and land a green plane before dark.

It is worth mentioning that the main goal of the entire project is to show that “clean” flights without environmental pollution are possible, and today you can achieve what many generations of scientists dreamed of - taking energy literally from the air.

Maybe it will take quite some time and we will fly on such planes? What do you think habrovchane? Who is related to this opportunity?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Here they wrote about it in more detail (English).

And here they wrote about the first launch of this unique aircraft.

PS The plane has already landed, all is well. So we will wait for new achievements and new models of "solar" aircraft.