Solar-Powered Ultralight To Try 24-Hour Flight 104
blair1q writes "When the solar aircraft Solar Impulse lifts off from an airfield in Switzerland on a sunny day at the end of June, it will begin the first ever manned night flight on a plane propelled exclusively by power it collects from the sun. Former Swiss Air Force pilot Andre Borschberg and round-the-world balloonist Bertrand Piccard developed the aircraft, and Borschberg will be the pilot for this mission. 'The flight will require a lot of attention and concentration — the plane doesn't have an auto-pilot, it has to be flown for 24 hours straight.' For him, the most exciting part of the venture is 'being on the plane during the day and seeing the amount of energy increasing instead of decreasing as on a normal aircraft.'"
The danger of solar power (Score:5, Funny)
Today the answer to everything seems to be solar power. But before we all get swept up in this fad, let's consider. For every action, there is an equal opposite reaction, said Albert Einstien. Every time yu use up sun rays, you take away energy from the sun. Do these enviro-hippies want to burn out the source of all life and live on a dark ball of ice? They don't care, they are too hopped up on Italian marijuana to think about the consequences of their "innovations." Let's stick to what works, good, clean natural coal power. God bless America!
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I am sure Leonard Nimoy would agree. This is a very dangerous project.
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Yes, you indeed are. What you're missing is that we're already using that energy. Rather than taking energy that's been stored chemically and re-releasing it into the atmosphere along with the emissions, we're somewhat reducing the Albedo. So while it does somewhat increase warming on that front, the overall picture is either no change or a small decline in warming from energy use.
You're assuming cheap solar power would replace other energy sources. If history is any indication, adding another source of cheap power just means worldwide power consumption would go up.
Of course, if you're living on the edge of starvation somewhere, cheaper power means cheaper food....
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Instead of Coal or Solar Power they should create a Boat that Sucks up the water out of the ocean and thanks to BP has oil particles mixed in a high enough concentration to run on a hybrid oil/ocean water mixture forever. Thanks BP!
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Do these enviro-hippies want to burn out the source of all life and live on a dark ball of ice?
Yeah, man. It's too damned hot here, the temperature tomorrow is going to be in the nineties. I say let's suck that thing dry, or at least until it's not quite so warm.
They don't care, they are too hopped up on Italian marijuana to think about the consequences of their "innovations."
Yeah, man, those Italians grow some killer shit!
God bless America!
God bless Italy!!!
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For every action, there is an equal opposite reaction, said Albert Einstien.
For every action, there is a Jackson, said Mike Nelson.
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Don't worry, at night it will run on moonlight so the drain will be split evenly between the moon and the sun.
Re:The danger of solar power (Score:5, Informative)
For every action, there is an equal opposite reaction, said Albert Einstien.
Newton's sitting in the corner glaring at you.
Re:The danger of solar power (Score:4, Funny)
One summer I was working at a college and was wearing a hard hat while I was going to check something at a construction site. As I was heading along a public street, some guy with a big beard and rainbow hat and shirt came up and started asking if I knew anything about solar power. I told him I did, and he worriedly asked if it was "sucking in the sun".
I told him that it was safe because it would be wasted if we didn't save it and he seemed very relieved that science wasn't going to use it all up. He promised to talk to me again so I quickly requested to work at a different site.
How about using thermals? (Score:2, Interesting)
How about soaring and using ridge lift? Ridge lift has been long used by glider pilots for cross-country flights. This planes seems to be a good enough sailplane. I has large aspect ratio wings and lift to drag ratio is probably decent as well, even though it does not look very streamlined, but it the ratio of the lift to drag that matters and this thing has a lot of lift.
Combined, solar and thermal energy (i.e. the energy of thermal air updraft) would yield a plane that could stay in the air forever.
Oh god no (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a peek at TFA so I could comment. This thing would fall apart in a thermal. Ridge lift means flying fast to avoid flying into the rotor behind the hill. Its not uncommon to pull a couple of Gs flying into and out of a thermal and this aircraft doesn't look up to it to me.
My guess is they are waiting for still air before they fly it. Look at the size of those control surfaces. Sure it will have a high LD but at 30 knots or so.
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I suppose the thing which bothers me about thermals is the rough air getting in and out. Thermals are surrounded by sink. A big, fragile aircraft could be in lift and sink at the same time and be subject to structural problems.
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Remeber that usually when entering a thermal one is flying at the McCready interthermal crusie speed, which accentuates the roughness of the sink at the edges of a thermal.(Which for the non glider pilots is like driving over cobble stones) This aircraft flying at minimum sink most of the time would not be disturbed as much.
It would be interesting to know what the aircraft is stressed to. Normal sailplanes are around +5g -2.6g. I doubt this would be any less than +3g.
Ac due to mods.
Falconhell
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Combined, solar and thermal energy (i.e. the energy of thermal air updraft) would yield a plane that could stay in the air forever.
[grin... quite a large one] I like the flying forever concept.
And what a wonderful idea: dig some huge bores through the Earth crust and let the planes sore into the night using geothermal. Alternatively, lit/maintain some huge fires to create some constant lift around the globe and suddenly the aviation is no longer affected by oil prices... Errr... wait...
Re:How about using thermals? (Score:5, Informative)
Thermal != geothermal.
Nobody said anything about digging holes, or setting up fires. There exist natural regions [wikipedia.org] of hot and cold air in the atmosphere that gliders take advantage of.
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Not many in Switzerland I suspect, even in the summer.
Re:How about using thermals? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How about using thermals? (Score:5, Informative)
What everyone seems to ignore is that ridge lift has little to do with thermals.
Thermals are streams of warmer air rising up through colder air and caused by temperature differences, just as the parent mentions.
Ridge lift on the other hand is caused by wind encountering a slope and having to move up to get over it, thus creating an upwards vector that can be used by gliders to soar.
The wind that creates ridge lift is of course ultimately caused by air moving in to balance pressure differences, which are formed by air being displaced by temperature differences, but that doesn't mean that ridge lift is the same thing as a thermal.
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Well technically on a windless day, ridge lift has EVERYTHING to do with thermals
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Do tell. Maybe I was led astray by watching glider pilots in the UK. They head for the nearest bit of ridge lift. Never heard of them thermaling.
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Some of those are very predictable [wikipedia.org] and have a stable position [wikipedia.org]
But that's why it has a solar panel and batteries, so that it's not limited to finding the right current.
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Event thought the predictability is "when the wind blows up the mountain" or "sunny daytime over a fresh ploughed area or asphalt" (what if no such conditions?) and the position may not be that stable (e.g. cited article: "For example, in 2007, Britain experienced severe flooding as a result of the polar jet staying south for the summer")
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The way I understand it, the interest in this is because you could have an aircraft with monitoring/transmission equipment in the sky for months. So instead of dealing with the latency of a satellite in geostationary orbit, you could be talking to a relay flying at a much lower altitude. It's also much cheaper, and easier to upgrade and replace.
Now of course it won't be 100% perfect, but that doesn't mean it can't be very useful. For things that service a specific area it should be possible to calculate the
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I agree here: lighter-than-air category aircraft already have large surface area and are not expected to have high speeds. Those characteristics make them very suitable for solar.
Solar is just not very practical for fixed-wing aircraft. Yes, you can make "solar gliders" as recreation aircraft, but you're never going to have a solar fixed-wing aircraft with any useful payload and acceptable speed. Solar planes are pretty much motor-gliders, and the applications for those are very different than for fixed-win
bwuh? (Score:2)
Why not a high alt blimp? The military already uses them for refueling stations.
say what, now?
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A proper sailplane can stay airborne for ten hours or more given fairly favourable conditions. For example flying in the mountains with a bit of wind blowing there should be enough lift to keep you flying indefinitely.
But if its dark or the pilot is tired then the sudden death percentage rises dramatically.
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Simple answer to your question: This is a test flight only. the goal is to fly around the word with this thing. Good luck ridge lift over the oceans (where they have to fly 24h or more without landing)
-S
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Official website (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bad idea (Score:4, Funny)
No kidding, they had the option to have it flown by Capt. Piccard, and chose the other guy. No way this is going to end well...I bet the other guy even wears a red shirt.
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Manned missions are just ego-wanking... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that I mind a bit of ego-wanking.
But human flight in this is limited by the pilot's endurance, so a theoretically indefinite duration is good for no more than 48 hours or so in practice.
The same concept, but with remote/autonomous* control, yields really indefinite-loiter UAVs -- a much more practical creature.
*Yes, I'm aware full autonomous control isn't feasible now, and begs for skynet jokes. But some automation for station-keeping without 100% human intervention is possible and highly desirable....
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24 hours != indefinite. I didn't RTFA but I would bet my left testicle that it will start the flight with full batteries and end with nearly depleted ones. The REAL test will be when energy levels and consumables like lubricant are about the same before and after 24 hours in flight.
FTFA: "Solar Impulse will lift off from an airfield in Switzerland, on a sunny day sometime at the end of June. It will then fly around, charging the solar cells on the plane's wings, in a bid to store enough energy for the electric motors to last until dawn... If it proves a success, the Solar Impulse team will attempt to go even further. The ultimate aim is to push the frontier of renewable solar energy. In two years' time, the plane will set off on its first manned transatlantic solar flight, followed in
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I suspect taking off will significantly drain the batteries in the first place.
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Which could be charged by leaving it sit out the day before. Did you expect it to get enough power to take off, right from the panels?
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Not at all.
My point was that, even starting with full batteries (which it would be stupid not to), as soon as it's in the air it will have drained them plenty. Hence the flying around recharging for the night.
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But human flight in this is limited by the pilot's endurance, so a theoretically indefinite duration is good for no more than 48 hours or so in practice.
It's to test the design. Normally, I would think that the pilot might land the thing and sleep once in a while.
24 hours straight? Dangerous! (Score:2)
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his mental and physical shape is vastly superior to the average and his abilities are way beyond the lesser men to comprehend.
You mean he's on cocaine?
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"Oh my god...the population...it's made OF PEOPLE!"
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Ultralights are really flimsy. It would probably just give you a nasty bruise - and only if you weren't wearing a hat.
No autopilot? (Score:2, Funny)
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I can't believe that they couldn't allow even one of those inflatable ones [tikaro.com] because of the weight...
Probably the sexual harassment issue. You can't pay just anybody to keep in inflated.
Re:What a feat! (Score:4, Insightful)
How about a radio relay? Or weather monitoring? Hell those are the 2 blindingly obvious ones that I can think of in 30 seconds I`m sure anybody here could list off a dozen uses for these with a few minutes work.
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A single high altitude airship, it has been proposed, hovering around 60K (feasible but expensive) feet just inland of NYC would have line of sight over the entire NYC, Connecticut, Rhode Island Northern New Jersey, and Philadelphia metropolitan areas
Sounds great, but nobody has ever made the dollars and cents work out when compared with terrestrial
Re:What a feat! (Score:4, Insightful)
The Wright Flyer was hardly a practical invention, either. But if we'd just listened to the naysayers, we wouldn't make any progress at all.
A low power electric aircraft, even without the solar cells and a battery pack instead, would have a great deal of uses where local flying is needed - for example, traffic reporting, news gathering and reporting (replacing expensive, thirsty and (to many people) obnoxiously noisy helicopters), law enforcement, aerial photography, recreational flying, radio relay, fish spotting, pipeline patrol, powerline patrol.
Projects like this which push material and electrical power delivery technology may move us a step nearer to practical, usable low powered clean, quiet electric aircraft for many of these jobs.
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What part of this aircraft's electrical generation systems could not be replaced by a bigger lithium battery pack and ground charging? If it's flying through a significant portion of night, i'd imagine a bumped up battery pack would be able to power this thing on charge alone for atleast 6-7 hours.
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Who claimed the purpose of this project is anything other than a proof of concept and to push "awareness"?
Just like the rest of his family with all their explorations:
Auguste Piccard (aeronaut, balloonist, hydronaut) ...
Jacques Piccard (hydronaut)
Jean Felix and Jeanette Piccard (aeronaut, balloonist)
Don Piccard (balloonist)
Bertrand Piccard (aeronaut, balloonist)
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There are only two energy sources on Earth - nuclear (fission/fussion) and solar (well, also tidal). The rest (including wind, biodiesel and even oil and coal) are just transformed and/or stored solar energy. We need to get closer to the source of all this energy technologically, so that we waste less of it - biodesel collects solar energy, stores it into chemical energy, that is then converted into useful mechanical energy via internal combustion. Solar cells + batteries + electrical motors are far more ef
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Sadly, the most thermodynamically efficient solution is not necessarily the most economically or socially efficient solution.
here's a hint: (Score:2)
hmmmm, I would claim all power eventually comes from nuclear sources, but then you brought up tidal. That's just extracting existing potential energy, but damn if I can explain where it came from originally...
Ancestor of Jean Luc? (Score:3, Funny)
And how will he stay awake? (Score:4, Funny)
Land of the Midnight Sun (Score:2)
If it was not spelled out in the rules I would pick a place further to the north where the sun does not set at this time of the year. Then they could get a full 24 hours of sunlight to drive the motors.
When the sun goes down the aircraft will either need to glide or operate off of power from batteries. If the sun "did not" go down for 24 hours you could sustain flight without batteries or by depending upon gliding. Then the only limit is how long the pilot(s) could remain in the air.
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I'd be worried that low incidence angle lowers the available energy flux to useless levels...
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You can get quite a lot of solar energy at upper latitudes, so long as your panels are pointed sideways (at the sun) instead of up. Also if there is snow you can capture the reflection off the snow and exceed the direct sunlight capture rate. I am working on a solar-powered rover to run on the Greenland ice sheet and our tests show even a panel facing away from the sun will collect 30% of nominal power from reflections alone.
But pointing all your solar panels sideways would be kind of hard on an airplane
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Just fly all the way around the world in your 24 hours. That's the easy way to stay in sunlight.
One word it it's indeed possible ... (Score:2)
... it's magic!
Not in the sense it's something beyond the laws of Physics but something we could only dream of just dozens of years ago.
It's exciting to live in this era.
It only works when you travel West (Score:1)
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Did no one notice? (Score:2)
If they can fly all night north of 22 degrees latitude, and past the fall equinox, I will be extremely impressed.
Direction of travel (Score:2)
I imagine if you fly west during the day and east during the night you could stay powered a long time. I'd still like to see someone build an unmanned craft that can stay in flight indefinitely powered by Sun and battery.
End of June? Cheaters! (Score:1)
The fact that it's going to be a full moon won't hurt! :-)