Tuesday, April 15, 2014:The ‘Round the World in a Solar Plane’ project is back at what it does best, well the title says it all, doesn’t it. If their first round-the-clock solar powered plane that was able to fly for 26 hours straight without using a single drop of fuel wasn’t enough, the team is back with the Solar Impulse 2. We are clearly twice as excited, why you ask? For starters, the plane will be capable of flying for 5 days straight making a round-the-world flight!
Bertrand Piccard, the first man to take a balloon around the globe, and André Borschberg, an engineer and entrepreneur will be piloting the plane just like in the case of the first one. The Solar Impulse 2 beats a Boeing 747 in terms of wingspan, but its weight is about that of an average car. The plane comes with four 17.5 HP motors powered by over 17,000 solar cells installed on the wings. Although the plane has a maximum speed of 140 Km/hr (only!) it will have to fly much slower for optimum energy usage. The motors provide a high efficiency of as much as 97 per cent.
The plane boasts of a number of innovations to minimise energy usage. To begin with the cockpit space has been reduced to as little as 3.8 cubic metres. Also each of the solar cell is mere 135 microns thick (about the size of five human hair). To further reduce the available space, the seats double up as toilets and can also be folded into a bed for lying down. One of the major challenges of manuevering such a plane is the landing part.
To ensure safety, a route has been pre-planned so that the plane flies over land as much as possible. Currently, the makers are looking for a viable city in the Gulf to serve as the departure and landing destinations, even as India, Myanmar, China, USA and Southern Europe or Northern Africa are being considered as possible stopovers. Sponsored by major companies such as ABB, Schindler, Omega and Solvay, the Solar Impulse 2 will take off anytime in 2015.
