Solar powered plane making global trip

I have been watching this. I am a little concerned that they will be crossing the US in thunderstorm season.
It would be totally altruistic of a major airline to offer to house the Impulse in a hanger along the way. With the collusion between the major corporations, it is hard to imagine any big company helping this independent group.
I contacted my local airport, but they don't have a hanger big enough to protect the solar powered plane, if the weather went nasty.
 
Their sponsors are some of the biggest companies in the world, and they chipped in an extra $20 million just to get out of Hawaii. It's a nice thought, but I don't think they need charity.
 
Meh. We know the tech exists so absent unexpected events they could make it. The only question is whether they get lucky or have advanced it enough that they don't need the luck.

Some interesting applications to combine this with drone tech and replace satellites at a much lower cost, but I think we're still probably 15 years away from it being realistic tech wise. And you'll still be dealing with a fragile system.
 
bflynn said:
Meh. We know the tech exists so absent unexpected events they could make it. The only question is whether they get lucky or have advanced it enough that they don't need the luck.

...
Click to expand...

I'm having difficulty recalling any sort of interesting attempt at something where the tech didn't exist. Might have been unproven, but it had to have existed, non? ;)
 
GRG55 said:
I'm having difficulty recalling any sort of interesting attempt at something where the tech didn't exist. Might have been unproven, but it had to have existed, non? ;)
Click to expand...
There are people who do interesting things, and there are people who sit at their computers and tell the world how meaningless it is.
 
Not saying its meaningless. Just that I am not impressed because it is all stuff that has existed before now. The question is about the reliability of the tech and this flight will do nothing to answer the question. Being able to do it once is nowhere close to doing it all the time.

Put in other terms, amateurs do something until they get it right. Professionals do it until they cannot get it wrong. I will be impressed when show that they are professionals at it.
 
bflynn said:
...The question is about the reliability of the tech and this flight will do nothing to answer the question...
Click to expand...
I would argue that the battery overheating, and the pause to design and implement a solution, has already done something to answer that question. It seems likely that what they've learned will be of use to the people who are working on solar powered drones, which are being developed to stay aloft for long periods of time.

We can disagree about how significant that is, but it's not "nothing."
 
bflynn said:
Not saying its meaningless. Just that I am not impressed because it is all stuff that has existed before now. The question is about the reliability of the tech and this flight will do nothing to answer the question. Being able to do it once is nowhere close to doing it all the time.

Put in other terms, amateurs do something until they get it right. Professionals do it until they cannot get it wrong. I will be impressed when show that they are professionals at it.
Click to expand...

In recent decades there have been more advances going on in aviation in one-off examples in amateur's garages and hangars than there are in the professional's research labs. This has been particularly so in the area of materials technologies.

Airbus is working on an electric airplane. It has resources beyond those available to the proponents of this effort. I don't see Airbus even having the imagination to attempt something like this...until of course they "cannot get it wrong". If NASA took that attitude we wouldn't have any idea who Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were.
 
bflynn said:
Being able to do it once is nowhere close to doing it all the time.
Click to expand...


Couldn't the same be said about Lindbergh? The technology existed, it was just a matter of having enough fuel on board and having the engine keep running. His one time flight was nowhere close to doing it all the time either. What it did is show everyone what was possible with the technology. The next group comes along and does it a little more efficiently and the ball keeps moving down the field one step at a time.
 
GRG55 said:
...If NASA took that attitude we wouldn't have any idea who Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were.
Click to expand...

Good point. Sadly, there are entirely too few who know those names today, and fewer all the time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top