Solar Plane Lands in Ariz., 1st Leg Of Major Trip

Solar Plane Lands in Ariz., 1st Leg Of Major Trip

By S Montoya Bryan, B Seavet |Associated Press |1 hr 38 mins ago
Excerpts:

PHOENIX (AP) – “Alone in the single-seat cockpit and high above the American Southwest, pilot Bertrand Piccard could hear only his plane's gear box and the quiet whine of four electric motors. No noisy jet engines.

He's flying Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced sun-powered plane, the first attempt by a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel to fly across America.

Piccard piloted the craft for 20 hours, first cruising along the California coast after taking off from Moffett Field in Mountain View near San Francisco just after dawn Friday.

He passed over Edwards Air Force Base, where other aviation milestones have been made, and then touched down early Saturday morning at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

But Piccard said Saturday afternoon that even more important than marking another aviation milestone is the hope that the journey will provide an exponential boost for interest in renewable energy and clean technologies.

"If an airplane can fly day or night with no fuel, just on the sun's power, of course it means that everybody in daily life can use this technology for his house, for heating and cooling systems, for lighting, for cars, for trucks. There's so much we can do now to have a cleaner future," Piccard said.

From Phoenix, the aircraft will travel to Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas, Lambert-St. Louis airport, Dulles airport in the Washington area and New York's John F. Kennedy airport. Each flight leg will take about 19 to 25 hours, with 10-day stops in each city.

Borschberg is hoping to pilot the last leg, which could afford him the chance to fly past the Statue of Liberty.

The plane, which has previously impressed audiences in Europe, is powered by about 12,000 photovoltaic cells that cover massive wings and charge its batteries.

The delicate, single-seat Solar Impulse flies around 40 mph and can't go through clouds. It weighs about as much as a car, making it vulnerable to bad weather.

Its average speed for the first leg of the trip was about 60 knots with a tail wind, Borschberg said. Ideally, the plane climbs up to about 27,000 feet or so during the day to collect solar and charge the batteries.

Borschberg and Piccard were ready for a series of tours over the next few days to show off the technology to Phoenix school children, university researchers and others.

"There are a lot of people who want to see this airplane," Piccard said.

So how hard is it to fly a solar plane?

Despite the aviation advancements made over the last century, Piccard said he and Borschberg have a lot in common with the early pioneers.

"One hundred years ago, the planes had to fly in good weather and there was only one person on board," Piccard said. "Now we have completely new technology, we fly with no fuel at all. But, of course, we need to fly in good weather and we carry only one pilot on board.

‘We're starting a new cycle. It's really the beginning of something new.’ "

http://news.yahoo.com/solar-plane-lands-ariz-1st-leg-major-trip-074043953.html
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IMO: Instead of making the oil, gas and coal people even richer, we should call the American ingenuity into focus and make the ground breaking into new technology become a new household word.

Solar energy has the capability of bringing America into the foremost countries with a new pollution-free, mass producing
energy to serve every need of the vast American business world, and consumer entrepreneurship.

Tell me where on Earth there is another form of energy that is pollution-free, doesn’t wreck the environment, and is free as long as the sun comes up every morning, and there is practically no chance of that going away.

Instead of freaking over every perceived or real insult to America, we need to get our workers back to jobs givng a living wage, fix the unfair tax system to bring in more revenue to pay for the movement away from oil, gas, and coal before it despoils America completely.

This should be an American citizen investment in our future, with the government owned enterprize with regular interest bearing accounts for every citizen. It is called sharing the wealth, and the responsibility toward our people and our lands.

The work is there before us if only we have the courage to reach out and grab it in a nonpolitical way to prepare us for the realities of tomorrow.

 

Wow..."60 knots with a tailwind" and ZERO payload. Awesome. I know CYCLISTS who can beat that...

The plane is nothing but a glorified TOY ,which if one is capable of OBJECTIVE thought,and CRITICAL THINKING, easily realizes, HIGHLIGHTS the ULITMATE FAILURE of SOLAR POWER, by illustrating it's abject WEAKNESS...at this point it time.

 

I would disagree. Solar energy has its niche in the residential and commercial application uses. Most residences that have solar panels are generally net producers of energy rather than net users. Companies that concentrate on making these type of panels are growing with sales increasing year after year. Part of that is the energy credit that will be available unit 2016. And with energy prices increaing due to demand, being a net producer will allow you to receive a residual income that will increase similarly to natural gas.

lHowever, it we take the same approach as you wit hthe number of compensate failing to the number of automobile companies failing between 1900 to 1930, solar energy is in good company.

- - - Updated - - -

This aeroplane is similar to the one called "Spirit of St. Louis" even though there were aeroplanes that had the capacity to carry passengers and/or a payload at the time of that historic flight.

 

"At this point in time" will always be the relevant qualifier for evaluating particular technologies if all we ever do is focus on their abject weaknesses.

 

Homes with solar panels DO NOT SELL ELECTRICITY. Make up much NONSENSE?

The plane is similar to the Spirit of ST.Loius, which flew NONSTOP from New York City to Paris,utitlizing a radial internal combustion gasoline engine, in NO WAY, outside of your IMAGINATION.

 

Merely stating the obvious. My liflelong dream of solar power, doesn't require me to pretend that this ,VERY PEDESTRIAN "playtime", is some sort of "HUGE BREAKTHROUGH in SOLAR ENERGY".

It is ANYTHING BUT....I mean there are DITZPOSTS from people trying to compare this lameass effort to Charles Lindbergh.

Pretending we have accomplished more than we have, is FAR MORE DETRIMENTAL to any REAL PROGRESS, than an objective observation of where we actually are.


I'm just saying...get a friggin' GRIP, people. It is no Big News.

 

Two words: net metering

Plese, don't give me the blatantly obvious, just the merely obvious and the obvious will do just fine.

The point i was making is that that the "Spirit of St Louis" was the first man made flight in a single engine areoplane with a single pilot instead of the multiple engine areoplane and at least two pilots. If you knew your aviation history, you would make the similarity.

 

In the world of science, it is big news. And in the world of science, lessons will be learned.

 

Dont get all excited here folks. This is a hugly expensive one trick pony. Yes it can fly across the US, but it only carries one pilot. It is just another green weenie orgasm that has no use in the real world.

 

This was a shining achievement, but as usual, you (*)(*)(*)(*)ed it up with your communist/socialist input, which that ideology has been a continual failure since the evolution of a human species, not to forget the murder that goes with it.

Psst, what would you say if Piccard was a conservative, and more than likely has investments in the oil industry like most every American? LOL!

 

Understood - and I agree. The real problem is, like in a lot of other areas, the political factions are trying to subject technological development to their particular recipes which are primarily political in nature rather than technological.

The early prototype experiments in electrical power generation looked like little more than a loop of wire being turned through a magnetic field produced by the pole pieces of a permanent magnet. It's a good thing that potential technologies weren't subjected to the self-serving, dualistic distortions of political partisanship back in the mid 19th century. We may have had to wait for saner times in order to enjoy the manifold benefits of electricity.

 

Natch. batteries don't make themselves....nor do they disappear into the ether when they're no longer operable.

Rainbows and unicorns.....

 

And yet, many oil companies have invested in renewable energy. Shell and Exxon are some of the biggest benefactors to renewable energy projects and gasifcation projects.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-10/big-oils-big-in-biofuels

The irony of them all, Exxon "Gtreen Company of the Year"

 

FYI----checking for more information, I found out that it flys at the fantastic speed of 43mph in still air.

It has been under development since 2003. The cost so far is ONE HUNDERED MILLION DOLLARS!!!! This sounds like one of Obama's failed green energy projects!!!!

One person 43mph for only the price of a $100,000,000-------------what a deal!!!!!! Thats ONLY $33,000 per seat mile, and that assumes you can fly it yourself.

 

Or as one Stanford engineering professor put it, "there has yet to be a solar cell manufactured that hasn't used more electricity in the manufacturing process than it could generate in its expected lifetime". [I'll find it if anyone is really interested in who said that and when]. On the other hand, early failures in technological development are usually (eventually) overcome and don't represent very good reasons to halt developmental efforts.

 

Exactly my point. Liberals espouse some sort of hatred of the oil industry, when in fact, most everyone's retirement, or investments are connected to them. They have been huge in other forms of energy, but have not found any profitability for major production yet. 7 billion humans would not be alive on this planet today if it weren't for the oil industry. So my advise to liberals and the op of this thread, quit making the oil/gas industry the villains, because they aren't, no matter what Michael Moore says. That fat piece of (*)(*)(*)(*) gets his donuts from the oil/gas industry also.

 

"Renewable energy" is a perpetual motion machine of sorts.....fueled by burning ever high piles of (taxpayer) money...vis, $59.00 per gallon jet fuel http://www.politicalforum.com/current-events/301216-close-white-house-tours.html ...
relying on conventional energy "subsidies" (plugging electric cars into the garage), or transferring the costs to other aspects of the economy....vis, corn based ethanol creating scarcity, and driving up the costs of food, and by damaging parts, increasing the costs associated with automobile ownership.

 

Technology is technology,and it is the LEFT that has polticized science,and blatantly so.

Solar electrical generation , in the form of solar cells, will never be much more than a novelty, until we develop a room-temperature super conductor.

Solar STEAM electrical generation is FAR MORE FEASIBLE at this juncture.

 

Yep - the Left has towed certain technologies into their land of silliness, lies, and other forms of bs. It's really unfortunate.

 

It's not the technology, it's the criminals who are getting rich exploiting the governments willingness to provide funds, and the crooked politicians who are willing to get their share in kickbacks and campaign finance. If it's not the oil industry hoarding patents, and paying off politicians, it's a bunch of con-artists soaking the tax payers for all they are worth.


If this technology would have been taken serious back in the 70's, most of this BS would have been solved by now.

 

Believe me, SCIENTISTS of the ACTUAL VARIETY, have been trying to develop the "fix" for ALL electrical generation,in terms of efficiency, the rrom -temperature super conductor, at a FEVERISH PACE, since the 70's , at least.

We'll get it figured out....

 

The only thing that will change human behavior is cost. When gasoline becomes $10/gal, people will change their views and their purchases.

 

If the banks and the oil industry was allowed to put a meter on the sun we would have more solar technology than we knew what to do with, just like if jobs were tax deductible.