Solar Powered Plane Completes Cross-Country Flight 105
An anonymous reader writes "The Solar Impulse, a solar powered aircraft, landed at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport completing its historic cross-country flight. From the article: 'The flight plan for the revolutionary plane, powered by some 11,000 solar cells on its oversized wings, had called for it to pass the Statue of Liberty before landing early Sunday at New York. But an unexpected tear discovered on the left wing of the aircraft Saturday afternoon forced officials to scuttle the fly-by and proceed directly to JFK for a landing three hours earlier than scheduled. Pilot Andre Borschberg trumpeted the milestone of a plane capable of flying during the day and night, powered by solar energy, crossing the U.S. without the use of fuel.'"
Re:Wright brothers (Score:0, Informative)
On December 17, 2903, the Wright brothers made a first controlled and powered human flight.
2903? Really?
With multiple stops along the way (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Solar Flight, great and all . . . (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt it'll be useful soon but down the road who knows. It was a few decades between the wright brothers and the age of the Airliner. Time and technology march on.
Re:Flying East. (Score:4, Informative)
I read your comment and have been trying to understand what the issue is. This plane has flown at night before. It collects more solar energy during daytime flight than it uses for power and stores the remainder in batteries for use during nighttime flight. Even if it couldn't, this aircraft is quite slow so, it wouldn't outrun the sun in an east-to-west flight.
I think he means http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream [wikipedia.org].
AND it was done 23 years ago! (Score:2, Informative)
One commenter mentioned the "fundamental dishonesty" of many of the stories on Solar Impulse. Hah. Even the Solar Impulse site itself acknowledges that a trans-USA flight in a series of hops was done by a previous airplane, Sunseeker. The year? 1990. Here's a photo of the plane: http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/sunseeker_solar_main.jpg
Wikipedia shows where Solar Impulse fits in the history of electric and solar-powered airplanes (it's pretty far down the list): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-powered_airplane
I have been astonished that so many "news" organizations were not all over the REAL story: latecomers trying to puff themselves up as "pioneers" and "innovators", when all of the pioneering and innovating in solar-powered airplanes was done decades previously. "Solar Challenger", anyone?