Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
A pair of Swiss explorers are looking to become the first men to fly around the world in an aircraft propelled exclusively by solar power, a perilous journey that they anticipate will take five months and will pit them against unpredictable weather and other hazards.
Their names are Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, and their voyage, which is the subject of a National Geographic story published on Friday, will begin in India and take them to China, then to the US, on an odd-looking, sun-powered airplane known as the Solar Impulse 2.
At two points during the flight, Piccard and Borschberg will spend extended stretches flying over first the Pacific and then the Atlantic Oceans. These will be the most dangerous legs of the trip, leaving them too far away from landing areas and out of the reach of rescue teams should the duo encounter weather-related issues or mechanical problems with their craft.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! (It actually is a plane.)
The website describes Solar Impulse 2 as being similar in appearance to a condor or albatross if viewed from above, and explains that nearly every inch of every sun-facing surface of the plane is covered in black and blue photovoltaic cells. It also has stiff wings that jut out from a short and thin fuselage, as well as stabilizers similar to the pegs of a pogo stick, Nat Geo added.
[STORY: Solar-powered sensor reminds you to shut the windows]
Solar Impulse 2 is made almost completely from custom-designed, ultra-light carbon, and will use advanced batteries and electric motors, along with the photovoltaic cells. The goal, Piccard and Borschberg explained, is to prove that a light-powered craft can be flown over vast distances and remain airborne even at night. Such a craft, they claim, could theoretically fly forever.
“The airplane is special not because it is solar, but because it is efficient… at harnessing energy, at storing energy, and at using energy,” Piccard, who in 1999 was one of two men who travelled around the globe in a gas-powered balloon, told Nat Geo. It was that voyage, and the fears that he would run out of fuel before reaching the finish line, that helped inspire him to come up with the concept of an aircraft that would never have to be refueled.
“This isn’t about oil, and it isn’t a movement to deprive people of things. Climate change is always presented as a battle to protect nature against business and comfort. Ecologists have put nature before humankind, and that’s a big mistake, a false equation,” Piccard explained. “These technologies are available now. We can change the way the world works, not by making people’s lives smaller, but by making them bigger.”
He started recruiting people to help him on his project in 2002, and travelled to America to meet with engineer Paul MacCready and Burt Rutan, who designed the first airplane to fly around the world without refueling. The following year, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology agreed to take part in a feasibility study, and tapped Borschberg to head up that research.
[STORY: Solar Impulse sails above Golden Gate Bridge]
The study group declared that the concept was possible, but beyond the technology of that era. Since then, however, technology has caught up to Piccard’s original vision, and ultimately, the 5,000-plus pound Solar Impulse 2 was born. Last April, it underwent tests of its and its more than 17,000 solar cell-strong photovoltaic array and other systems, as it looks to become the first craft of its kind to be flown for multiple days and nights.
The dangerous journey
Its journey, Nat Geo explained, will be broken up into 12 legs, the pilots will frequently stop in order to rest and switch duties. A support crew will meet up with Solar Impulse 2 at each of its destinations, but even so, each part of the trip require up to 12 hours of flying, and three of them (China-to-Hawaii, Hawaii-to-Arizona and New York-to-Europe) will last up to five days.
“During those flights the solitary pilot won’t be able to stand up (there isn’t room), though he can recline the seat, which also doubles as a toilet,” the website explained. “Imagine a lounge chair stripped of its padding and crossed with a port-a-john. Now sit there for days, mostly belted in, often very cold, never getting up. Try to remember that the view will be inimitable.”
[STORY: Solar Impulse 2015: Around the world in a solar-powered airplane]
Needless to say, the voyage won’t be easy – or cheap, as Borschberg said the project has already cost $160 million (150 million Swiss francs), all of it privately funded. However, he and Piccard are hell bent on attempting to circumnavigate the globe. The takeoff was originally scheduled to take place on March 1 but was postponed. Given how much time, effort, and resources the duo and their team has already invested into the project, however, the delay was a mere bump in the road.
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