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Solar plane flies nonstop for a week
We recently reported on the historic flight of the Solar Impulse, the first solar-powered plane to fly through the night. Now another barrier has been broken. The Zephyr solar plane has flown nonstop for seven days.
Unlike the Solar Impulse, which carried a pilot, the Zephyr is an unmanned drone built by the UK defense firm Qinetiq. Drones have seen extensive service in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years but are hampered by the need to return for refueling and thus losing sight of targets. Drones that never need to land have an obvious advantage. The civilian potential is obvious too, with researchers already thinking up applications for using them for scientific observation.
This development also marks another step forward for potential solar-powered commercial flight. The Zephyr has solar cells along its 22.5 meter (74 ft) wingspan that drive the propellers and fill batteries that are robust enough to power the plane from sunset to sunrise. Will we one day see solar-powered commercial flights? It may be a long way off, but considering the rapid pace of technological change, it's unwise to say that anything is impossible.
The Zephyr is still in the air near the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona and its support team plans to leave it flying for another week.
Filed under: Europe, North America, United Kingdom, United States, Transportation, News
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
james Jul 19th 2010 7:29AM
yeah this would be good if you were transporting air as a product !
dan Jul 19th 2010 8:13AM
I couldnt agree more James, SUPER light weight, super hi efficency solor cells that are way beyond the average joe. Cant carry any substantal payload and never mind its teribbly slow. Call me when this thing can do something for the average man. My guess is 25-30 years from now.
Phred Jul 19th 2010 11:34AM
This thing has no room for payload, for now it is a toy. Until they can deveolp batterys and solar cells far beyond what we have not, this is just a dream. Solar and electric powered cars and planes are years away. The electric car has a short range, and it has to be near a plug in, that supplies electiric power generated for the most part by coal or oil burning power plants, there is no air polution advantage.
chris Jul 19th 2010 9:09AM
The first commercial flights will have all one class, and the seats are made of hemp!
Ain't Jul 19th 2010 9:53AM
Sean, you fly on it.
Pat Brister Jul 19th 2010 10:06AM
Every new ground breaking development starts small and gradually works its way up. When the Wright Bros. built the first airplane, it was built for 1 person and flew less than the length of a football field. We've long since past the the open cockpit, biplane era. We've gone from hand started, single passenger, belt driven, wooden props that might reach 40mph, to turbo props, to jet engines that can carry over 300 people to speeds near the sound barrier, at over 30,000feet, and can travel over 3,000 miles without a fillup! But you know, we're still researching all of these propulsion systems in search of finding their optimal performance for any given need.
It's pretty obvious that you're not a scientist, a researcher, or even a dreamer. With attitudes and outlooks such as yours, we'd still be living in caves, wearing animal hides, eating most of our foods raw, and beating each other over the heads with animal bones! We'd still have no understanding of fire to warm our bodies, or cook our foods. Considering your complacency, we might have even been consumed by less intelligent animals and be the late great human race! Wake up!
Dick Jul 19th 2010 10:07AM
The teaser headline read: Plane Could Change Everything. Really?? Everything?? Really?? What kind of jackass writes such crap? Will it change religion? Will it change politics? Will it change the food we eat? how about the movies we watch? Will it actually change ANYTHING...even aviation? I seriously doubt it. This is an experimental aircraft with a wingspan of 74 feet, needed to create enough lift to keep it in the air. It has NO practical application...not even as a drone for use in reconnaissance. WHY? With a 74 foot wingsapan and its ultralight frame its not: 1. sturdy enough, and 2. Its an easy target. Hey AOL why the hell don't you wake up and actually monitor and edit the crap your "journalists" post on your website?
jamestaylorm Jul 19th 2010 10:46AM
It would probably help if you pulled your head out of your butt first. The first will be used as communication satellites. That way they can service them without having to go to space to do it. That alone will save billions. Crawl out from under your rock and try to learn something instead of spewing your stupidity!
Tom Jul 19th 2010 10:53AM
Dick:
The "change everything" headline that you reference is AOL sensationalistic trash.
AOL does this crap all the time.
Your comment spent way too much time on this issue.
You need to ignore it and use the article's true headline.
I am 56 and have a 23 yo son.
I can't foresee the development of a solar commercial passenger or cargo plane in either of our lifetimes.
The experimental planes are built extremely light and fragile, and can barely keep themselves aloft.
I have to disagree with you, however, on your comment about drones.
With current photographic and other remote-sensing technologies, the drones could fly high enough to avoid detection and being shot down.
Tom Jul 19th 2010 11:12AM
To JAMESTAYLORM:
Perhaps you should be a little more cautious in your personal attacks and criticism of Dick.
I guess you never learned that "airplanes" need to have "air" passing across their wings to give them lift and keep them "airborne". Duh?????
Or, is it that you never realized that there is no "air" in space?
It seems that Dick is not the one living under a rock or who has his head misplaced.
How old are you? 7?
Angiebaby Jul 19th 2010 10:23AM
We may someday see solar-powered flights, but we won't see ME on board. I'll take the dinosaur flying machine with multiple engines (handy, in case an engine fails)! Yes, I, myself, am a dinosaur, but I'm not about to be on the solar-powered plane when it experiences a glitch and loses power, and some will. Nothing has ever been built that didn't have a failure rate, even if that failure rate is small. I mean, if I'm on a solar-powered plane and it fails, the planes miniscule failure rate is I00% failure for the passengers on board!
jaydol Jul 19th 2010 11:05AM
How about having mirrored orbital satellites, evenly spaced around the planet,
focus their light from the sun on these vehicles as they enter and exit their territory and before transferring the task to the next satellite?
Rick Jul 19th 2010 11:19AM
WOW. I can’t believe the ignorance (that’s uneducated for those of you whom do not understand that word) of some people. I think the development of solar planes is exciting and scary at the same time. There is so much potential for this in military (good or bad-on either side, by anyone) or commercial use and even in the private sector such as an ultra-lite plane. Small steps can lead to great things.
SamIam Jul 19th 2010 11:29AM
AOL's headline link for this article is "Plane could change everything". What a joke. I'm so sick and tired of the fake hype about anything "green". We are all being played for suckers. Don't believe it! Most of the movement have ulterior motives of social control over YOU. They are ECO-MARXISTS, not "environmentalists".
The only realistic application for a fully or partially solar powered aircraft is unmanned, high duration, high altitude surveilance or science/weather monitoring. And even that is an iffy proposition.
Richard Jul 19th 2010 1:35PM
Samlan, there were people just like you who said Horseless carriages were a waste of time in the early years of technology. And I bet you are one of those people who say man never landed on the moon, or if he did, Why. I guarantee that in a very few years solar powered planes, cars, and boats will be common place vehicles of travel. If we were all like you naysayers we would still be rubbing sticks together to make fire.
Bob Jul 19th 2010 12:00PM
I would think that embracing a new use for solar would be amazing. I am excited for it's potential use and development of solar power for all kinds of things, we are getting so much negativitey from so few that it should only encourage the developers, scientists and others to proceed at full speed.
sonny Jul 19th 2010 11:30AM
Useful, yes. Limited? very. Daylight hours of locale critical.
Chuck S Jul 19th 2010 11:47AM
Maybe jamestaylorm didn't mean sattelites, but high flying communications airplanes that are still in the atmosphere. They need air for the wings to fly, but with solar don't need air for the engines, so they could be pretty high. I don't think too high to be detected or shot down. I think any height can be detected or shot down by advanced countries, but they don't have to be very high to be out of range of more backward countries. For advanced countries, the best is very close to the ground.
For safety, maybe they'll all be unmanned for a long time, or have a conventional back-up engine. They could have a lot of redundancy - have the solar cells batteries, and maybe motors in 4 or more independent groups, so any failure in one leaves 3/4 still functional. Clouds could be a problem, but they could fly above them and/or make use of batteries.
Doc G Jul 19th 2010 11:48AM
In regards to the naysayers who are whining about payload (or the lack thereof) I would like to quote a brilliant man. Bill Murray in "What About Bob?" : "Baby steps to the door....baby steps out the door...baby steps down the hall...baby steps around the corner...baby steps to the elevator...baby steps to bigger payload."
Dick Jul 19th 2010 12:44PM
I see from the email I recieved I must answer my critics, so here goes:
To jamestaylorm, who said: "It would probably help if you pulled your head out of your butt first. The first will be used as communication satellites. That way they can service them without having to go to space to do it. That alone will save billions. Crawl out from under your rock and try to learn something instead of spewing your stupidity!"
How can this aircraft be used as a communications satellite? It barely has sufficient lift to keep itself airborne? Only if significant advancements are made will that be possible. The only person here with their head up their butt appears to be you. Oh, and by the way, I'm a retired aerospace engineer who was a project manager for Rockwell International who worked on the shuttle, and several tactical guided missiles, including the Hellfire, the GBU-15 and the AGM-130. I have Ph.D.'s in electrical engineering and applied physics. What's your education, grade school?