The Swiss really have a leg up with respect to solar technology. Just last month, the World’s Largest Solar Boat (the Swiss-engineered PlanetSolar) visited Boston. And just this weekend, the first flight relying solely on energy from the sun (again, Swiss-engineered) successfully completed it’s coast-to-coast tour of the United States. Solar Impulse’s historic flight landed safely Saturday night at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport. The solar-powered plane concluded the last leg of its tour, achieving its mission to promote clean energy.
Solar Impulse is an organization based in Switzerland and founded by Swiss scientist Bertrand Piccard and pilot André Borschberg. According to Tech Crunch, the founders described the milestone as “… the first time a plane capable of flying day and night powered exclusively by solar energy has crossed the USA from the West to the East Coasts without using a single drop of fuel.”
The solar plane runs on lithium batteries charged by 12,000 solar cells on the plane’s wings, enabling it to fly during the day and night for up to 26 hours. The aircraft only weighs about the same as a midsize car (specifically 3,527 pounds) but has wings that span the same length as those of a jumbo jet (208 feet). The sleek airplane can climb up to 35,000 feet but Borschberg, when considering the technology, said that “There are no limits,” not even the sky! Although he did pinpoint a small problem area: the pilot may get somewhat bored on long flights, “The only limit is the pilot…To cross oceans and to make very long flights, we need entertainment for the pilots to stay alert and in good shape, many days and many nights.” But not to worry, Solar Impulse has a new aircraft lined up that will address this problem by the end of this year.
Nonetheless, the solar powered technology still has a long way to go before it catches up to traditional jet fuel. The Los Angeles Times detailed the plane’s pace as slow, explaining that “It weighs about the size of a small car and soars with what is essentially the power of a small motorized scooter.” The solar plane left San Francisco in early May and made several stopovers (in Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Dulles) before arriving at its final destination around two months later. But according to Tech Crunch, Solar Impulse plans to continue expanding the technology, making it “better, faster, and stronger”.
