Piccard unveils Solar Impulse prototype

The Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard has revealed the first model of his «Solar Impulse» plane in which he plans to fly around the world. Speaking at Dübendorf military airport just outside Zurich, Piccard said the aim of the project was to demonstrate the role of renewable energy sources in sustainable development.
 
After four years of research, calculations and simulations, the Solar Impulse project has entered a concrete phase with the construction of an initial prototype with a 61-metre wingspan – the same as an Airbus A380. If all the sums work, the plane could make a 36-hour flight – the equivalent of a complete day-night-day cycle – in 2009 without any fuel.
«Solar Impulse is not just a plane, but also a vision for a sustainable use of energy», said 49-year-old Piccard on Monday. In 1999 he became the first man to circle the earth non-stop in the Breitling Orbiter 3 hot-air balloon. Construction of the first prototype began in June 2007 and will last until the summer of 2008. Test flights should start in autumn 2008, with the aim of completing the first night flight in 2009.
Another plane will then be developed to attempt to fly several 24-hour cycles consecutively, leading to the first transatlantic flight in 2011 and then the first round-the-world flight.
 
Objectives
 
The prototype is basic – the instrument panel is reduced to the essentials and with a non-pressurised cockpit the 1.5-tonne aircraft will be unable to fly above 8,500m. It will be a first approach at optimising the balance between energy consumption, weight, performance and controllability. The goal is not to try to fly around the world and indeed the prototype is not built to do so. According to the Solar Impulse team, there are three objectives at this stage: first, to validate the computer simulation results, the technological choices and the construction techniques. Second, to test an unexplored area of flight: never before has an airplane succeeded in flying with these size, weight and speed characteristics. Third, to store sufficient solar energy during the daytime to demonstrate the feasibility of a day-night-day cycle (36-hour flight).
 
Specialists
 
To achieve this, a multi-disciplinary team of 50 specialists from six countries, based in Dübendorf and Lausanne, assisted by a further hundred outside advisers, are pooling their very specific experience and knowledge. Research initiatives have been undertaken in a number of sectors: conception, aerodynamics, energy efficiency, structure, composite materials and manufacturing procedures – both for individual components and for the assembly as a whole. Piccard, the initiator and president of the project, says the Solar Impulse is the symbol of the new technologies that society ought to be capable of rallying behind in order to economise the planet's energy resources.

Scientists from EPF Lausanne on board

The pilot lowers his right arm, the plane curves to the right. He moves his arm forwards, and the plane begins to dive... its wings, with the wingspan of an Airbus A380 «superjumbo», are covered with solar cells. Among developments making the adventure possible is a new kind of interaction between human and machine, the work of researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). The pilot moves, the plane reacts – a child’s game, but one that is providing a huge challenge to the EPFL team. Others include minimizing the plane’s weight and storing energy efficiently. But the EPFL already has extensive experience with ultra-light, resistant materials: more than 50 EPFL researchers worked on the technology behind Alinghi, the yacht that twice won the America’s Cup. Together with CERN – the world’s largest particle physics laboratory – EPFL is making the Geneva region a hotbed of innovative research.

swissinfo with agencies and ST (November 5, 2007)