Solar Impulse parked at night (photo ©2010 Solar Impulse)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - SolarImpulse took off on its maiden night flight early Wednesday 7 July north of Lausanne and, if all goes as expected, the plane will continue flying until early Thursday. Success on this first night flight would make it the longest and highest flight ever by a solar plane.
During the day the plane will be visible from several points in the region, with current location visible on the cockpit page of the plane’s web site. Fans can follow the flight on the Solar Impulse Facebook page.
Plane to descend to 1,500 metres tonight
The plane, with a wingspan as wide as that of an Airbus but which weighs only as much as a car, will slowly climb to 8,500 metres during the day, gradually charging its solar batteries in preparation for the night flight. About two hours before sunset the sun’s rays stop being strong enough to supply the solar cells with energy. Solar Impulse will start a slow descent at that point, reaching an altitude of around 1,500 metres by 23:00.
The plane should then carry on flying, using the energy stored in its batteries, until the next sunrise. The big question is whether the pilot can make efficient use of the battery energy to fly throughout the night.
Late afternoon cloud buildup could pose a threat
The suspense will build late in the afternoon, however, with the region’s tendency to have late afternoon storms during hot weather posing a potential threat. If storm clouds build up, the plane may have to return to its home at the Payerne airbase before night.
“The intention of this mission is to demonstrate the potential of renewable energy and clean technologies and to promote them amongst the public,” says Bertrand Piccard, initiator and president of the Solar Impulse project.
Pilot Andre Borschberg with solar cell (photo ©2010 Solar Impulse)
André Borscherg, CEO and co-founder of the Solar Impulse project, is at the controls and Claude Nichollier, a retired astronaut, is head of the Solar Impulse test flight programme.
The first night flight was originally scheduled for 1 July but was called off at the last minute when a key communications transmitter failed. It, too, was a prototype, so a replacement had to be made quickly to allow Solar Impulse to take advantage of good weather conditions and the long days at this time of year.
Background, GenevaLunch
Link to Solar Impulse web site, live coverage of the flight/view from the cockpit
About the Solar Impulse project
From Solar Impulse:
A 70-strong team, together with 80 partners, took seven years of hard work, calculations, simulations and tests to build this completely new carbon fibre plane, with its wingspan equivalent to that of an Airbus A340 (63.4 m) and weighing about the same as a middle-sized car (1600 kg). No aircraft so large and yet so light has ever been built before. More than 12,000 solar panels are built into its wing, supplying renewable energy during the day to the electric engines (each with a maximum 10 hp of power), while at the same time charging the lithium-polymer batteries (400 kg) used for flying at night. The Solar Impulse project, initiated in 1999 by Bertrand Piccard following his circumnavigation of the world in a balloon, is supported, among others, by its main partners, Solvay, Omega and the Deutsche Bank, by its official partner, Bayer Material Science, by Lausanne’s EPFL, its official technical advisor, by Altran, its engineering partner, and by Dassault-Aviation, ! its aviation advisor.
Solar impulse lifts off the ground for its first flight in Payerne, Switzerland 7 April 2010
Update 13:05 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The weather was beautiful, the mood upbeat – and the plane flew, just as everyone was hoping it would. Solar Impulse, the first plane designed to fly night and day without fossil fuels, slowly climbed 1,200 metres into the air Wednesday 7 April at 10:27 and flew for the next 87 minutes before pilot Markus Scherdel landed it again in Payerne.
Solar Impulse, maiden flight 7 April 2010 in Payerne, Switzerland
“This first flight was for me a very intense moment!” Scherdel told the crowd that had gathered, as he got down from the aircraft.
Solar Impulse
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Solar Impulse, the wide-winged Swiss plane that is the world’s first designed to fly night and day without fuel or polluting emissions, will take to the air for the first time tomorrow, Wednesday 7 April. The aircraft has a wingspan comparable to that of an Airbus A340 (63.4 m) and a weight similar to that of an average car (1,600 kg): no aircraft so large and so light has ever been built before, according to its team. The plane will take off from Payerne in canton Vaud, near the Swiss air force military base.
Pilot Markus Scherdel is expected to take off early in the morning and fly for an hour and a half, if all goes well. He should reach an altitude of 1,000 metres. “The objective of tomorrow’s mission is to verify that the plane’s flight behaviour is in line with the calculations and simulations done using the flight simulator. With such a large and light plane never having flown before, the aircraft’s flight behaviour remains unexplored,” the Solar Impulse team says in a press release.
Some 12,000 solar cells are built into its wing, supplying the 4 electric motors with a maximum output of 10 hp with renewable energy and charging the 400 kg lithium-polymer batteries during the day to allow the solar-powered aircraft to fly at night.
The project is the child of Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg and has been developed with a team of 70 people, working with 80 partners.
Background, GenevaLunch
Solar Impulse computer model in flight (image: EPFL)
Duebendorf, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “Yesterday, it was a dream. Today, it is an airplane – tomorrow it will be an ambassador of renewable energies”, Bertrand Piccard told journalists gathered Friday 26 June for the unveiling of his futuristic fuel-free airplane Solar Impulse.
Piccard is the head of a project to build and fly a plane that uses only the sun’s energy to fly non-stop around the world.
