Solar powered flight - Test flight scheduled for April 2009

[TheCoxwain]

This will be really cool if turns to reality.. BUT SHIT SHIT SHIT .. We are the country that invented the airplane .. and now we're in danger of being left behind

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/Solar_plane_in_2009/articleshow/3721333.cms

<snip>

'Solarimplse,' a solar plane, dubbed a revolutionary project in the field of aviation, will have its first test flight April next year in Switzerland, an officer associated with the project said.

Besides, the microlight-like plane is scheduled to take off for a round-the-world flight in May 2011, project communication head Phil Mundwiller said.

The pollution-free plane would fly with zero fuel on the strength of solar power both day and night, whose prototype was displayed here as part of the 60th ceremony of India-Switzerland Friendship Treaty.

[drm604]

1. It only carries one person, the pilot.

I don't see much commercial possibility.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Moving a person...

[Uncle Joe]

5. The same could be said for the Wright Brother's aircraft, but

you have to walk before you can run and so forth.

[drm604]

10. Yes but I am highly doubtful that this could scale up to anything commercially viable.

There's a big difference between a microlight and a commuter plane or a large airliner. It may be useful for the kind of things currently done by one or two passenger planes but I have to believe that larger planes are going to always require some kind of concentrated energy source, most likely in the form of a liquid or gaseous fuel, especially if you want the kind of speed achieved by current airliners. However, that fuel could be generated on the ground from renewable sources, including solar.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Yes but the same could be said about the Wright Brothers plane.

Many people didn't think flight other than hot air balloons was possible at all.

I'm wondering about the future potential of combining solar with nano technology, maybe that will be a way to concentrate the energy?

Furthermore, who knows what other technologies will or can come in to play over the next few decades, that we're not even aware of yet.

[drm604]

14. No.

The Wright Brother's plane was powered by an internal combustion engine, which is scalable.

The fact that people were mistaken in the past doesn't prove that people are mistaken now. It's basically irrelevant to the conversation.

I'm not an engineer or a physicist so I can't show you the math but intuitively, even if the entire upper surface area of an airliner was covered in solar collectors, and even if 100% of the sunlight was converted into usable energy, that airliner couldn't do what current airliners do. There simply wouldn't be enough total energy in the sunlight that is hitting its surface, regardless of how efficiently you converted it.

We can use solar power to power large planes, and we should do so, but we'll have to gather it on the ground and use it to generate some kind of concentrated fuel. We could then use that fuel to power the plane.

[Uncle Joe]

15. I'm not an engineer or physicist either, but I believe we're just scratching the surface

in regards to nano-technology and it seems to me this could be feasible and at some point further discoveries in the use of nano-technology may be able to magnify the sun's energy to exceed 100%, maybe it would be a combination of the sun's energy and a chemical reaction on a micro scale.

Maybe in this case, the scalable target isn't so much to measure up as to measure down?

I also believe we should use solar power on the ground as you suggest to create more conventional fuel for jets.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Here comes the sun, with apologies to George Harrison.

There is no reason as to why we can't do that.

Thanks for the thread, TheCoxwain.

Kicked and recommended.

[thereismore]

4. On solar power around the world - this was sort of done before, in a balloon. nt

[Eurobabe]

6. Does India give out student loans?

Just curious. Wonder how much their college tuition is?

[TheCoxwain]

7. I guess --- as long as you come here to study

that should explain the all Asian grad students on every campus...

[Eurobabe]

8. no I was curious about the cost of education there

do the students come out with loans that could finance a luxury car? What I am saying is, America has GOT to make college affordable without all this goddamn student loan baggage. It's no WONDER other countries are surpassing the US, and it is only going to get worse.

[TheCoxwain]

9. From what I know .. most parents fund the education which is not very expensive

the best colleges have virtually zero tuition... parents usually pick up subsistence

[Terran]

12. Commercial flight is largely doomed without something like this.

Maybe a hybrid could be designed...

[ContinentalOp]

13. We're not behind. We already flew the world's first solar plane!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AstroFlight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_airplane