The Solar Impulse 2, a carbon-fiber experimental airplane flown by pilots aiming to complete the first solar-powered round-the-world flight, set three impressive records during a five-day trip from Nagoya, Japan, to Oahu, Hawaii. The SI2, for short, set the record for the longest nonstop solo flight by time for any aircraft at 118 hours after completing a leg of it’s mission in Oahu, Hawaii on July 3, 2015. This same trip earned the SI2 records for the longest solar-powered flight by time, as well as by distance.
The pilots, Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, are Swiss explorers who hope to draw world-wide attention to the capabilities of clean technologies and renewable energy. For more than 4,000 miles, Mr. Borschberg endured five days of flight during the record-breaking trip from Nagoya to Oahu.
On a 236 foot wingspan, the aircraft holds 17,000 solar cells, which power four electric motors and store solar energy during the day using four large lithium-ion batteries in order to continue flying throughout the night. The mission began on March 9 in Abu Dhabi, and is supposed to cover nearly 22,000 miles upon completion. There are several more legs of the journey, but the final two are planned to take 120 hours each. The wingspan is considerably long in comparison to the fuselage (body) of the plane and was probably designed this way to help the plane glide steadily and also to hold all of the solar cells. With a maximum weight of 5,100 pounds, the only passenger is the pilot. The cruise speed of the plane is typically 55 mph during the day and reduces to 35 mph at night to save energy, but the maximum speed of the aircraft is 87 mph.
What this team is doing goes much farther than aspects and industry; they are actively representing a cause that they believe in and are willing to go above and beyond obstacles that most other private and commercial aircraft companies have a hard time justifying the designation of funds to, and that includes finding alternative fuel sources using renewable energy technologies. The reason for their lack of emphasis on the area is most likely that even though fuel efficiency and costs are major focuses in aircraft development and design, there is no quick and easy substitute or fix to the burning of fossil fuels and the world needs air travel.
To clarify, the cost of fuel impacts the cost of your plane ticket, but it's not necessarily true that any airline company benefits from that cost factor, specifically. Solar cells themselves are also expensive, as a tradeoff for fueling a combustion turbine, and would need maintenance and upkeep often, as they are on the exterior of the plane body and are exposed to external atmospheric factors, not unlike turbines.
Until larger industries see private interests and support (monetarily and cause-wise) of projects like this one, we probably won’t see solar-powered jumbo jets anytime soon, but we can appreciate and support the groundbreaking pioneers who aren’t giving up on environmental health!
