May

Solar Aircraft Begins Virtual Flight nowadays – Check It Out Live

Posted by admin Published in Air Travel

“In a world dependent on fossil energies, Solar Impulse is a paradox, nearly a provocation.”

Press release gobbledygook? Absolutely. But you’ve got to give it up for any company with the guts to try designing and building a true solar airplane.

We’ve written about Solar Impulse before — it’s a consortium of European financial and technology parters led by the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. The group is working on a solar-powered plane that can take off under its own capability without generating any emissions at all. The general concept is that sunlight would not only capability the plane during the day but would additionally charge its lithium batteries, allowing it to fly around the clock pollution free.

Solar Impulse hopes to send its HB-SIA prototype on its first pop quiz flight next year, and in preparation is conducting a virtual flight in its new cockpit simulator. The cool part is that they’ve wired the simulator up with webcams so that public can watch the experiment live.

Known as Virtual Flight 08, the simulation will start at 10am nowadays (May 12) at Solar Impulse’s hanger

in Dubendorf. Two pilots will take turns at the controls on experiment flights that final 25 hours each, and Brian Jones, a Solar affect techie perhaps best known for circling the soil in a balloon, will blog hourly about the simulation and take questions online.

The Solar Impulse public see that virtual flight as key to the development of the HB-SIA. Using a life-sized cockpit model decked out with five panoramic screens, the simulation will allow Solar Impulse to pop quiz the plane’s ergonomics and verify that its interface functions properly. The mission simulator uses elaborate algorithms to simulate breakdowns, real meteorological conditions, and other incidents, which will plus sharpen the pilots’ skills by forcing them to react on the fly.

Virtual Flight 08 can be viewed live at www.solarimpulsevirtualflight.com. We’ll be watching and reporting back, but whether you have a chance, check it out and let us know what you think.

Photo: Solar Impulse

Original post by Dave Demerjian