Solar-Powered Plane Makes Runway Debut 120
MikeChino writes "The much-hyped Solar Impulse airplane just completed its first runway test, paving the way for a 20-to-25-day trip around the world next year. Conceived by Bertrand Piccard, the single-pilot plane successfully used its four solar powered motors to taxi around the runway. If all goes according to plan the plane will be able to fly day and night without fuel, signaling a bright future for solar-powered flight."
What are the implications for solar races? (Score:1)
Re:What are the implications for solar races? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, a plane is just a flying car after all...
Actually, a car is a badly designed plane. Just try driving one off a cliff, and you'll see what I mean.
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<a href="http://www.coolforsale.com/" title="coolforsale.com" rel="nofollow">
Unlikely to be any search association either way, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view. It's very unlikely that that spammer will ever get enough karma to avoid having rel=nofollow applied to all its links...
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Implications for solar car races? None. You may as well look at a sail-boat and ask "what are the implications for powerboats?". An aircraft with a large enough wing-span can stay airborne for days on end just by gliding, whereas cars tend not to move much without an engine.
Better site? (Score:1, Insightful)
Kinda interesting they didn't have the dimensions of the solar plane readily available. From the pictures it looks like the wingspan is an easy 100 feet to carry how much, one guy? Wonder how big the wings would be to carry 200 passengers, oh, and where would get the energy to carry them at 600mph? Seems to me solar and flight are fundamentally at odds simply because you need vast surface area to get the energy to reach high speeds...but then, maybe it can work, almost like you optimize
solar powered plan
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would have to factor in wind resistance from the giant wings, but that's cross sectional area, I thought, that causes drag, so if you made the wings really thin...
If the weight ratio is too great, you could simply have two planes and suspend the pilot on a line between the wings.
Re:Better site? (Score:4, Funny)
If the weight ratio is too great, you could simply have two planes and suspend the pilot on a line between the wings.
Probably necessary in more northern latitudes such as Europe, but in Africa I reckon one plane could easily carry the pilot.
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You'd need some place to put the solar panels, which will also put a lower limit on wing surface, because there's a minimum amount of energy you'll need.
Then due to this plane not exactly flying at 900 kph, you'd need short wings to prevent it from stalling due to the wind movement created by flying over a cow that's thinking about farting.
So you need a minimum wing surface, and you need a relatively short wing. Your only choice is going wide.
Now add to that that the maximum weight of the plane is obviously
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Here's an image gallery of the plane : http://www.solvay.com/services/imagegallery/solar/airplane/0,,77566-2-0,00.htm [solvay.com]
A more technical gallery : http://www.solvay.com/services/imagegallery/solar/technicalaspects/0,,77567-2-0,00.htm [solvay.com]
The plane is called "solar impulse", btw, and it's Belgian.
Old story (Score:2)
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Easy to shoot down. (Score:1)
And the military applications are equally great. Want to attack a country ? How about a permanent rocket launch basis in the sky that does not ever need to come down ?
Have you noticed that powerful lasers are becoming cheaper and easier all the time, that radars are getting better and better all the time? We're getting to a point where anyone with a few grand will be able to shoot down one of these robot chumpies, and why the hell not, they are robots, and noone gave anyone permission for them to spy on me
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Have you ever tried finding a small plane 50 meters overhead
Dude, its more than that. 50,000 feet up is 10 miles away. You cannot see or even hear even a pretty big jet at that altitude.
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But how would the pilot grip it? By the hull?
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If the weight ratio is too great, you could simply have two planes and suspend the pilot on a line between the wings.
Or you could always go with a solar powered balloon plane.
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balloon plane
Eh? I’m not sure if there is any such thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclined_plane#Blades.2C_wedges.2C_and_foils [wikipedia.org]
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suspend the pilot on a line between the wings.
What? Held under the dorsal guiding struts?
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If the weight ratio is too great, you could simply have two planes and suspend the pilot on a line between the wings.
You just need some additional thrust... http://inventorspot.com/articles/solar_powered_fan_hat_wearable_gadget_looks_and_feels_cool_24822 [inventorspot.com]
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8367214.stm
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Kinda interesting they didn't have the dimensions of the solar plane readily available. From the pictures it looks like the wingspan is an easy 100 feet to carry how much, one guy? Wonder how big the wings would be to carry 200 passengers, oh, and where would get the energy to carry them at 600mph? Seems to me solar and flight are fundamentally at odds simply because you need vast surface area to get the energy to reach high speeds...but then, maybe it can work, almost like you optimize
solar powered plane energy = kw * wing area meters ^ 2 - kw * motor * mass * velocity ^ 2.
and
mass = wing density * wing area meters ^ 2
would have to factor in wind resistance from the giant wings, but that's cross sectional area, I thought, that causes drag, so if you made the wings really thin...
I half agree with you. Half. None of our grandchildren are ever going to fly at 600 miles per hour. There isn't enough energy, and they won't be able to afford to use it. We're burning all the cheap energy there's ever going to be, right now. A plane which could provide practical flight at one hundred miles an hour and that they could afford to use might be useful to them. I'm sceptical, though, about whether this is the right way to go about providing that - hydrogen from electrolysis of seawater looks to
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I half agree with you. Half. None of our grandchildren are ever going to fly at 600 miles per hour. There isn't enough energy, and they won't be able to afford to use it.
I disagree. If they get a serious energy crunch, they'll adjust. I don't think high speed flight is going away, it might get a tad rarer for the population, but it's not going away.
Big, mostly full planes going 600 odd mph for a couple thousand miles or more are actually very fuel efficient - especially when you're looking at overseas travel and saving weeks on a cruise liner.
They're also experimenting with bio-jet fuel, they're testing it right now for B-52s.
For the land, high speed rail, a good mesh of
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I half agree with you. Half. None of our grandchildren are ever going to fly at 600 miles per hour. There isn't enough energy, and they won't be able to afford to use it. We're burning all the cheap energy there's ever going to be, right now.
I'm sure someone made the same argument back when horse-drawn carriages were the height of technology. Fortunately, "cheap" is a relative term. As our technology improves, things which would have been astronomically expensive - or completely impossible - a hundred years become commonplace today. The same will happen for your grandchildren. We have enough conventional oil stores to last for decades. We have enough oil sands and shales to last for centuries. Even if we just stick to conventional energy
Insightfull my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy isn't insightful, he is a twit.
Not all planes are passenger planes. This plane would be perfect for unmanned or long range observation. Carrying all your fuel aboard becomes incredibly expensive the longer your range has to be. This plane solves that by refueling constantly while inflight.
Insightful? No, short-sighted, yes.
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This is all technically exciting, but they'll have to find a business use for this.
it looks like the plane can carry just a few kilos of cargo, and would go around the world in around a month, not too good for transport!
Maybe it would be good for earth observation, cheaper than satellites, more detailed images.
And then maybe an unmaned version.
It will be interesting to follow
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Tech is not here. (Score:2)
You left out one important part of your 200 passenger plane. Strength of materials to enable any reasonable speeds. I would be curious just how calm of air this solar plane needs to get airborne and stay there without being being damaged. Then there is the whole issue of flying for that many days and not encountering turbulent weather.
Planes already use exotic materials to weigh as little as financially reasons allow. While this solar plane is a neat concept its nothing more than that. I was more inter
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I see your point on this, but there are lots of important/cool potential applications for this that are not centered on carrying passengers.
I'm thinking surveillance aircraft capable of near continuous operation, or replacing the Goodyear blimp. You could even equip a plane like this as a cell tower, and be able to shift the hardware to cover areas with high call volume, like during a local emergency.
Right now, this tech doesn't seem capable of transporting cargo or people. However there are lots of reason
Re:Better site? (Score:4, Insightful)
Relax, it's just for research. They're not saying that it'll completely replace all airplane technology, or even that it will ever displace current jet fuel models - it's just something that's worthy of being looked into. Instead of asking ourselves if we can use this to fuel a jumbo jet, let's start with a simpler engineering problem and see if it's practical for powering, say, a 4-passenger private vehicle. Or maybe an unmanned drone for non-passenger purposes.
What is important about this is that if they can show that it's practical and stimulate some interest, then maybe they can get more funding and attention. That's why they have these prototype designs and demos - not cause they think it'll solve every energy-related problem the world faces. Sure, not every new, 'promising' technology ever turns out to be as great as we expect them to be; but if they weren't labeled as such, those few that actually have a chance of being viable would never receive attention.
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You didn't look very hard, did you?
TECHNCIAL DATASHEET
Wingspan: 63,40 m
Length: 21,85 m
Height: 6,40 m
Weight: 1 600 Kg
Motor power: 4 x 10 HP electric engines
Solar cells: 11 628 (10 748 on the wing, 880 on the horizontal stabilizer)
Average flying speed: 70 km/h
Take-off speed: 35 km/h
Maximum altitude: 8 500 m (27 900 ft)
http://www.solarimpulse.com/en/documents/challenge_solar.php?lang=en&group=challenge [solarimpulse.com]
Re:until storm/nightfall/eclipse hit (Score:5, Informative)
RTFS!
"If all goes according to plan the plane will be able to fly day and night without fuel, signaling a bright future for solar-powered flight."
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Oh yeah, all day and all of the night.
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With a really good glide ratio, some of the "stored power" could be altitude. Maybe not all of it, but if you can accept a drop of 10,000 feet over the course of the night and plan on climbing back up during the day, you could reduce your need for stored power (and therefore batteries / weight) considerably. Just have enough power on tap to reduce the descent rate, not enough to actually fly level or climb during the night. And, of course, your minimum altitude should still be above the cloud deck so you
Zeppelin (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'm afraid ocean looks like ocean from pretty much any angle...at least from lower you could make out details in the waves
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free fueled planes exist? (Score:1)
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Sure! Here are a few photos....
http://www.shatterhand007.com/ChristopherLee/LEECarStunt.jpg [shatterhand007.com]
http://www.spankyspangler.com/pics/spanky_RandyHill_car_jump_crash01.JPG [spankyspangler.com]
http://www.cgfocus.com/gal_images/axis3d/CarJump_674a66af7a57589bdfbe689b51a95a41.jpg [cgfocus.com]
http://www.spareroom.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/hoon_footage.jpg [spareroom.co.nz]
http://www.focol.org/kahs/images/Clippings/PC-Car_going_off_cliff.jpg [focol.org]
http://lightsideoflife.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/car-flying-off-cliff.jpg [wordpress.com]
NASA already has a Solar UAV (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oNHD41MLMk [youtube.com]
But a manned plane would be pretty neat. Hope it has enough batteries for the night - the solar UAV does a lot of gliding, which might not be possible with a heavier aircraft actually attempting to get somewhere.
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Maybe it has pedals.
NASA USED TO have a Solar UAV (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pages_from_64317main_helios-3.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Unexplainably, it stopped the project. I still wonder why.
Re:NASA already has a Solar UAV (Score:5, Interesting)
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that flight crew managed to restart the engines and made a powered landing in jakarta.
for a gliding landing all the way through, check air canada flight 143, AKA, gimli glider [wikipedia.org]
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A better example is Air Transat Flight 236 where an Airbus 330 glided about 100 miles to a landing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236 [wikipedia.org]
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Sometimes aircraft just run out of fuel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider [wikipedia.org]
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I'm not just worried about the night, but I'm also wondering how direct the sunlight has to be, because this could narrow which air routes can be used. Will it only work at direct, perpendicular incidence? Is there a range of angles where it would be enough? Or do the panels themselves have trackers to orient themselves towards the light?
I assume that they're not huge issues cause they can make it through the night on battery, but they're interesting to consider. Also, I wonder how long it takes those batte
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Some sailplanes carry water in the wings to weigh the plane down. The effect is to speed it up without changing the glide slope ( so I'm told ).
Commas (Score:2)
Interesting that on their web site [solarimpulse.com] the wingspan is 63,40 m but mass is 1 600 Kg. I suppose they can afford less confusion with the mass of their aircraft.
Re:Commas (Score:5, Informative)
Have a look where the design team and the sponsors come from.
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The rationale is that a speck of ink (or other unwanted mark) is less likely to be confused for a comma than it is for a point.
Since the thousands separator is merely decoration, it doesn't matter if you mistake a speck of ink for one. But the decimal separator is crucial, so it should be as unambiguous as possible.
A comma is also bigger than a point, so it's easier to read for people with poor eyesight. It makes the difference between a 1,5ml dose of a drug and a 15ml dose.
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Comma-separated values (Score:2)
But the decimal separator is crucial, so it should be as unambiguous as possible.
But with the rise of the spreadsheet, something else became ambiguous: decimal separator vs. the field separator in CSV files [wikipedia.org]. (I prefer tabs, but some of our service providers prefer commas; it's a good thing I live in Anglophonia.)
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Use quoted fields to hold numbers if they use the comma as the decimal separator. It’s no different from having “Last, First” fields.
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Then I’m betting they’d also consider the dot to be the decimal separator. If they’re correctly written, it will still be displayed using the regional settings for numbers, although that’s more of a crap-shoot.
Maybe to distinguish from multiplication? (Score:1)
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If it’s due to poor eyesight, yes. The people delivering medical service should have the eyesight, precision, and attentiveness to tell the difference between 1.5 ml and 15 ml.
If it’s due to poor handwriting or difficult-to-read print, though, I can see how this would be a legitimate issue and it couldn’t always just be blamed on the medical professional who’s doing the job.
tl;dr: Parent has a point, but oversimplifies the issue. I don’t think “Troll” is warranted.
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Yes I realised my mistake about one ohnosecond after I posted that.
Re:Commas (Score:4, Funny)
I was in the Louvre looking at the old French crown jewels when I heard someone read the display: "Fifty-four THOUSAND carats!?!?! WOW!"
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You'd figure the holier-than-thou would be the ones to find out what the world's standard was and slavishly adhere to it, proclaiming all the while how superior it is, and how anyone who clings to an outda
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You mean like how we Americans adhere to the metric standard? :-)
Wow, that's a good news! (Score:2)
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Yeah.. we live in the future.. (Score:1)
I read "Plane Makes RunAway Debut " (Score:1)
...those Picards!!!! (Score:2)
...always on the forefront of exploration!!! ;-)
Let's do the math on this one... how many HP? (Score:1)
Let's do the math.
61 meters wingspan, as an estimate, let's say 6 meters width. That's 360, let's say 400 square meters counting the tail surfaces.
At 15% efficiency and no clouds at high noon , that's about 60 kilowatts, say almost 100 horses. But if you subtract for unavoidable factors
like non high-noon, clouds, battery chemistry, and night, say 40% x 70% x 75% x 40%, we're down to about TWELVE average horsepower trying to lift 3500 pounds.
By comparison, your basic very fragile ultra-light plane that c
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Yeah, right, chief, they are idiots and you are real smart. Did you ever hear about a thing called lift to drag ratio? An enormous, extremely high aspect ratio wing has a lift to drag ratio that is out of sight. And power necessary to overcome parasitic drag is proportional to the cube of the speed. This thing flies at a hair over 20 mph near the surface and peaks at about 45 mph at high altitude where the lower air density cuts the drag.
Oh, and if you don't want clouds in the way you, like, fly over th
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L/D has nothing to do with it.
Do the math-- 3500 pounds and 12 horsepower -- what's going to be the absolute best rate of climb possible with no friction---? under 100 FPM.
Add a little unavoidable drag and you have a really miserable flying machine.
Also if it takes off at 20MPH, then that implies it can't take off if the wind is more than 6MPH or so in any direction.
A miserable and very dangerous flying machine.
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What I really don't get is why you continue to try to apply the dynamics of a plane to something that is obviously not one. This is essentially a solar powered glider. 'Nuff said.
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all the people that have done it in past must be cheating.
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Perhaps you should consider the difference between a plane that can briefly just barely get off the ground, under optimal sun and wind conditions, carrying no usable payload, versus a plane that can takeoff safely in average or marginal weather, and stay up and get somewhere say against a mild wind, and climb at more than 100FPM, and not stall with a mild tail or crosswind, or breakup in turbulence, and carry a useful payload, perhaps even be human-rated, and do so economically, year after year.
Paul MacCready already built a couple of those (Score:2)
Anyone else notice... (Score:1)
...that they're taking off on a cloudy day on the video? Maybe that's why it was only a runway test ;^)
night and day? (Score:2)
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Commercial fuel cells have been ten years away for more than ten years, they're in the same category as supercapacitors, show me the fucking product. Hydrogen has crap energy density and it would make more sense to just use biodiesel in current turbine designs than to ever move to hydrogen; turbines are wicked efficient, and making biodiesel is more efficient than cracking hydrogen by any means we now have available. In fact, most of the nation's hydrogen is cracked from Natural Gas, making it a petro-fuel
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You could make the argument that hydrogen electrolysis would work for solar or wind farms to store generated energy, but I have no idea how efficient that would be. I'd imagine it would need to be on a very large scale to be worth it.
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Hydrogen is an energy transmission device, it's never been a SOURCE of energy. We can't "mine" hydrogen or produce it out of nothing.
Uh, yeah, that's what I said, asshole. We lose around 5% of our electrical power in transmission in this country (including conversion related to transmission.) The efficiency of hydrogen through electrolysis is under 60% in basically all real-world cases. Can you see why Hydrogen is fucking stupid, given that it is prohibitively expensive (in terms of energy cost) to make, and that the other forms of hydrogen ARE in effect mined, since again we make most of it from Natural Gas? Which, BTW, comes from wells
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I never said hydrogen was the best solution to ANYTHING, only pointed out that cracking it from hydrocarbons isn't the only place it could be obtained.
Maglev flywheels? Hydrogen is an unmitigated boondoggle and you're talking about maglev flywheels? Did you manage to find a high temperature superconductor bearing, or do you want a cryogenics plant to go with your magic pink unicorn? To quote from an inter
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Maglev flywheels? Hydrogen is an unmitigated boondoggle and you're talking about maglev flywheels? Did you manage to find a high temperature superconductor bearing,
You are a big fucking idiot who should stop now while he is behind [outlookseries.com]
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Actually, hydrogen has very good energy density by mass (the best of any chemical fuel). By volume, it's very poor. That's why you see hydrogen used as a fuel for rockets (where mass matters much more than volume), but not aircraft. A commercial airliner running on hydrogen would require a huge insulated tank that would add lots of weight and drag; you can't just tuck the fuel into the wings like you can with jet-A. It may become usable for small aircraft, but I don't think you'll see it used for anythi
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So none of you guys actually read TFA, did you?
The whole point of this exercise is to build a plane that =can= fly through the night. It does this by storing energy accumulated during the day, both in batteries (chemical) and as altitude (kinetic). Climb during the day, descend (slowly) at night. It's designed to fly at 20 to 30 thousand feet, so clouds aren't an issue. It has four 10 HP electric motors, which will average 8 HP each during flight. It flies at around 40 MPH.
Good News (Score:2)
No Red Eyes.
It's really about advancing solar technology. (Score:1)
My idea is the best idea. Trust me. (Score:1)
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Is this a "Historical Document"? (Score:1)
Oh well, look on the bright side! If my great-great-great-great grandchildren serve in Starfleet, at least one of them will have a high probability of seeing Kirk getting his shirt torn off. B