We're big fans of charming, ungainly Solar Impulse, and of Captain Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg's quest to circumnavigate the globe in a solar-powered plane. In case you missed the live stream: the Swiss flier just got a little closer to that goal by completing its first international flight, taking off near Berne, Switzerland and landing in Brussels, Belgium, just under 13 hours later. That's half the flight time of an earlier test, in which the craft's 200-foot wingspan, covered with 12,000 photovoltaic solar cells, kept it aloft for 26 hours. Of course, a controlled test flight is one thing -- making solar-powered flight commercially viable means proving your plane can successfully navigate busy airspace. To see Solar Impulse come in for a smooth landing, peep the video after the break.
1 comment:
Solar Power systems may seem like the new kid on the block but the reality is they have been around for over 70 years.
There are panels in the Sahara Desert that have been running continually for 27 years in sandstorms and blazing heat, others that have been in space for over 50 years and going from -160 to +200 degrees C every 90 minutes!
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