The first solar-powered flight across the Atlantic
The competition heats up: Solar Impulse 2 has successfully completed the first solar-powered flight across the Atlantic in the 15th leg of its journey around the world.
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The competition heats up: Solar Impulse 2 has successfully completed the first solar-powered flight across the Atlantic in the 15th leg of its journey around the world.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Never be commercially viable. Now a lighter-than-air craft, like maybe a Zeppelin, would travel faster AND have a useful payload capacity.
This may be more of a demonstration of current technology. This solar-powered aircraft stayed aloft over the course of 2-1/2 nights. It took off in the middle of the night, demonstrating that the power storage capacity was large yet lightweight.
Flying to 28,000 feet suggests that there was some weighty life support hardware on board. The pilot would need oxygen and something for warmth. The power gathering and efficiency of the solar cells demonstrates that a piloted, long-distance, solar powered aircraft is much more feasible than it was not so long ago.
The article, below, says: “It’s a demonstration that the tech is reliable.” But also listen to what the pilot says, in the 1-1/2-minute embedded video, about why they are doing this:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/24/travel/solar-impulse-2-plane-california/
The Spirit of St. Louis was a demonstration of what was possible. It was not a plane that could carry passengers, but it demonstrated that reliable long-distance flight had finally become possible with the technology available in 1927. These guys are doing something similar, demonstrating some possibilities of solar power, and possibly inspiring other uses, too.