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from the cell-of-an-achievement,-captain-piccard dept.
Sonnenseite reports:
History was made [July 26] when Bertrand Piccard gently touched the nose of the Solar Impulse 2 (SI2) aircraft down on to the hot, dry runway in Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emerites] at 4:05 am local time, marking the end point of an epic journey that began in this same spot 17 months ago.
The SI2's epic journey has covered 43,000km [26,700 miles], made 16 stops, crossed both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and captured the world's imagination by doing all this without a single drop of fuel. Upon emerging from the one-man cockpit, Bertrand was immediately embraced by fellow pilot and Solar Impulse co-founder Andre Borschberg, who shared flying duties during the historic journey.
Covered in 17,248 SunPower solar cells, it was the sun what won it: Solar PV technology kept the plane in the skies and ensured there was enough juice in the four lithium polymer batteries to fly through the night.
Our previous coverage of Solar Impulse 2.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday July 28 2016, @08:55PM
Now, can you please make it in less time than the same trip takes in a sailboat?
45 days 13 hours shouldn't be that hard to beat, now that you've proven the concept.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday July 28 2016, @09:11PM
And maybe without a complete battery replacement half way through the mission.
On the other hand, if Boeing and Tesla can't prevent battery fires why should these guys be expected to do so.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday July 28 2016, @09:27PM
According to a documentary I read [wikipedia.org], sailing may take a little longer than that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday July 28 2016, @09:48PM
The 45 days 13 hours record is the property of the current Jules Verne Trophy holder, which was named thus for reasons you might guess.
The 80 days threshold was even broken by a single-crewed monohull in 2013, 20 years after the first full-crewed multi-hull did it on the first JVT.
And that's without assistance. Getting food/equipment refills on the go would probably cut a few days by lightening the boats at the start.
Man those guys are fast...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_world_sailing_record [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by subs on Friday July 29 2016, @12:31AM
And that's without assistance.
This is what makes this whole thing hilarious. It's literally faster to go solo, without assistance and non-stop in a fucking sailboat than it is to fly in that SI2. It's such a turd that as soon as a breeze picks up, they're grounded. Oh and there's a good reason why they flew eastward. If they tried it the other way around, there's a good chance they'd be going backwards in places. It's a little trick that mostly on pilots know about.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday July 29 2016, @08:16AM
Oh, I missed that part where they took more than a year to complete their trip.
Heck, 80 days should be a reasonable target.
I think there is a reason that the only organisms really using solar power don't move much. I suppose you can argue that reptiles use solar power as well, but the supplement it with protein.