Solar Craft Flies Through Two Nights 156
An anonymous reader writes "A solar-powered, unmanned craft has flown for 54 hours — a record for both unmanned aerial vehicles and solar craft. None before has managed to store enough solar energy to fly through more than one night. There is also a video showing the 18m carbon fiber wing craft being launched."
Re:An idea (Score:4, Informative)
Re:An idea (Score:4, Informative)
Re:An idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:An idea (Score:5, Informative)
Storing energy is the key. You might be able to store it in batteries like these people have done, or store it in your altitude and just let it glide down at night -- but that would require a really efficient plane. This looks to be a really efficient plane, but it's obviously not quite efficient enough to do that.
That would be cool if they'd try to fly it across the Atlantic -- it would be the first electric plane to do so, and the first solar powered plane to do so. TAM 5 [plannet21.com] took 39 hours to cross the Atlantic, and this plane was up longer than that -- but it's a lot slower too. TAM 5 averaged about 48 mph, and I'll bet this plane is less than half that.
Re:An idea (Score:4, Informative)
That would work only in the summer.
That would be handy only if you needed that aircraft over the polar region during the summer months.
Then you have the really big problem...
The solar panels are mounted on the wings... The sun at the poles never climbs very high in the sky so the panels would have to be mounted on the sides of the aircraft. That would limit your collecting area a lot and or produce a lot of drag.
So the idea while interesting at first glance really is far from practical.
Re:An idea (Score:3, Informative)
Tipping Point (Score:3, Informative)
When a vehicle can go 24h on only 12h prior charge, that will be the next major milestone. Still not enough for uninterrupted travel past a latitude where nights are longer than a whole couple of days (depending on the battery - a yearlong discharge battery would be good anywhere with current performance).
The next parallel milestone is automated rechargers leaving ground charging stations to recharge the permanently aloft vehicle in flight.
After that, there's not a lot more demand for improvement, except overall efficiency for carrying heavier loads and more demanding equipment.
Like a network of these permanently in high atmosphere propelling solar sails through the solar system and down to blimp spaceports.
Grousing about submissions (Score:5, Informative)
Though the previous one also did gliding/non-powered flight part of the time. Still, up for 48 hours.
Re:What the? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tipping Point (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know if that is the case here.. just saying that it doesn't necessarily follow that the plane can stay up indefinitely.
Re:An idea (Score:3, Informative)
AC Propulsion did this a while back (Score:4, Informative)
AC Propulsion said that they could do it indefinitely, but their pilots got worn out.
Thad Beier