A.R.S.E.

Anyone been following Solar Impulse? It's a Swiss attempt at the first solar powered circumnavigation of the globe in a piloted, fixed-wing aircraft.

The trip is being done in 12 stages and they're about to do the 7th leg, from Nanjing to Hawaii. 5 days non-stop to cover the 8172km.

http://www.solarimpulse.com/rtw



As you can see from the take-off's, it's not the fastest plane out there

Sorry Darren. Didn't realise you were already onto this before I started another thread. Humblest apologies.

Live pictures:

Avg, it has been around 25kts when I have been watching on the site, it is a nice solar/glider.

Fantastic to see its recharging after the night.

wobblysauce wrote:Avg, it has been around 25kts when I have been watching on the site, it is a nice solar/glider.

Yeah. A fucking big one

Bigger wingspan than a 747 but only 2.3 tonnes

That it is..

http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-8-from-Nagoya-to-Hawaii

Close to Hawaii now - neat widget here with data and a live stream from the cockpit. This is quite a big deal - 4 days in the cockpit, all on solar!

http://www.solarimpulse.com/widget-pilot_health

Woot! Only about 12 hours to go at this rate.

So impressive.

hum.. a 17% difference on 1 engine to another, 95%,100%,83%,91%charged.

Currently circling off Honolulu for a landing at 16:00 UTC, about 02:00 our time.

Don't know how I missed this. Last time I looked they were still testing in Hawaii. I think that was at least a week ago.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-24/' ... ia/7354124

Anyhow, that's another big one off the list.

J.D. wrote:Don't know how I missed this. Last time I looked they were still testing in Hawaii. I think that was at least a week ago.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-24/' ... ia/7354124

Anyhow, that's another big one off the list.

Cheers for the heads up J.D.

I must be tired and missed something in the article... Could not see when the flight began, when it landed, duration, distance, dates, times, anything? Was it a single leg? How many KM? Average speed? It mentioned sleeping for 20 minute blocks... Would be nice to know how long the entire journey was for.

Checking their website - 62 hours for this leg, 117 hours for leg 8 Nagoya to Hawaii. The final 4 legs look pretty tough still. Atlantic Crossing looks pretty significant!

And landed...

We made it around the world. 40'000km without fuel, a first for energy.

Historic solar flight marks first round-the-world journey
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a0adc07a ... ld-journey

Of course it used fuel, the rays of Sol a by-product of Nuclear Fusion.

No mention of the other record, comfortably slowest circumnavigation of the Globe by a non Sea going Vessel.

The 2-3 crossings did look great.

The power of the sun is amazing. Solar impulse used solar panels, but when i was gliding, my 600kg+ plane was kept aloft by the updrafts generated from the ground, warmed by a star 150 million km away. Truly astounding.

And with your Kayak Smiths.. when out in the big blue.. you are powered by the fear of sharks..