Solar-Powered Airplane Completes First International Flight 211
liqs8143 writes "Solar Impulse, a fully solar-powered airplane, has completed its first international solar-powered flight. After a flight lasting 12 hours 59 minutes at an altitude of 12,400 feet, using no fuel and propelled by solar energy alone, Solar Impulse HB-SIA landed safely in Brussels, Switzerland. After the landing, company co-founder Bertrand Piccard said, 'Our goal is to create a revolution in the minds of the people . . . to promote solar energies — not necessarily a revolution in aviation.' Compared with 2003, energy efficiency has increased from 16 to 22 percent. And the cells are now half as thick. The project has a total cost of $88 million, which is funded by mostly-Swiss partners and public donations."
Re:'International' Flight? (Score:4, Informative)
Switzerland to Belgium. So it wasn't just a hop across an adjacent border. And, as the summary says, they were in the air for almost 13 hours.
Re:'International' Flight? (Score:2, Informative)
If they had a helicopter that hovered for 13 hours at such a low speed it would be even more impressive.
What, like a party balloon?
Not Impressed (Score:2, Informative)
Payerne (SZ) via Nancy (FR) to Brussels (BE) (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Payerne (SZ) via Nancy (FR) to Brussels (BE) (Score:4, Informative)
SZ? [wikipedia.org] Wow, Swaziland to Belgium is quite a hike.
And yet if you remove the superfluous punctuation [wikipedia.org] from your Wikipedia search you find that SZ is the "the NATO country code for Switzerland". Swaziland would then be WZ in that system.
Re:Payerne (SZ) via Nancy (FR) to Brussels (BE) (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, and we all live by NATO codes here on the continent. Right?
I would sooner point to the ISO3166 standard for country codes. There, Switzerland is still CH.
Having said that, ISO3166 doesn't quite match the vehicle codes used on the road.
I tend to look at the license plates on cars, where CH is Switzerland, but France would be F and Belgium would be B.
Here is a list of both the vehicle codes and the ISO3166 codes:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landcodes_voor_voertuigen [wikipedia.org]
Oh, and by the way: Swaziland is SD respectively SZ. The NATO can kiss my ass.