You might have heard about Solar Impulse when the sun-powered plane project made its maiden flight in 2009, or in 2010 when Borschberg set the endurance record by piloting the aircraft for 26 consecutive hours, running on stored solar energy from on-board batteries after the sun went down. Now he and teammate Bertrand Piccard are off on even more ambitious ventures, which they came to New York to discuss last night. First, in 2013, they will fly their solar-powered plane across the United States. Then, in 2015, they will pilot a larger version around the world.
At this moment, 12 engineers from the Swiss-based team are disassembling the Solar Impulse, which has spend the last couple of years making shorter flights around Europe to promote the project and the idea of cleaner energy. The team members will then pack each piece individually (the components must me suspended in their containers so they can?t touch the sides), ship the plane to California on board a 747, and put the puzzle back together in the springtime. Solar Impulse will take off from the Bay Area in early May 2013. This isn?t a flight meant to set a record; the plane, with the team following behind it, will tour the U.S., following favorable skies south to Texas before visiting Washington D.C. and landing in New York in late June.
Then comes the big bird. "Construction of the second plane is halfway through right now," Solar Impulse marketing director Gregory Bratt says. Borschberg said it will have the wingspan of a 747 and the capacity for 50 percent more solar panels (provided by California-based SunPower). Where the ultra-minimalist first plane can fly legs of 20-some hours at a time, the new plane will be able to fly legs of four to five days to complete its circumnavigation of the globe. It includes a pilot assist mechanism that will allow the flesh-and-blood occupant to get some shut-eye.
The pilot will be able to lie down and move around a little more in Solar Impulse 2. That should please Borschberg who told PM he resorted to a sort of "belly dancing" to stay loose during his 26-hour night flight; the middle-aged Swiss pilot then gyrated his torso a bit as a means of demonstration. The cabin of the current plane is also not pressurized, so the pilot cruising at 30,000 feet must wear a full flight suit and oxygen mask at all times. Although it?s not complete, Bratt says, Solar Impulse and its partners are investigating a prototype solar-powered pressurization system for the second aircraft. "Now we have an economy-class cabin," Bratt says. "To go around the world, we need to give the pilots a business-class cabin." (Just don?t expect the comfort of an airliner upgrade. To keep energy use down, the cabin is insulated but not heated, meaning the temperature can drop below 0 degrees Fahrenheit inside. Also, the seat doubles as a toilet.)
Piccard credits the team?s utter lack of resources for its success so far. "By having no money, we had no pressure to spend and go in the wrong direction," he said. And by starting from scratch with no team and no expertise in building aircraft, he argued, Solar Impulse wasn?t bound by any conventions of what an aircraft should look like. "It wasn?t the people who were selling candles who invented the light bulb," he said.
Circumnavigation, however, looms as a much larger challenge. It will take five flights of about five days apiece, spread out over a couple of months, to get the new Solar Impulse around the globe. (The plane maxes out at about 40 to 50 knots if there?s no headwind.) But to Piccard, the flight isn?t about getting anywhere in a hurry. The adventurer who completed the first non-stop balloon circumnavigation of the globe (and whose father graced the pages of PopMech in the 60s) says it?s about making a statement that flying without fossil fuels can be accomplished.
"In the 21st century, explorers have the responsibility of bringing solutions to the big problems of humanity," Piccard says.
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