The Swiss team that flew a solar-powered airplane across Europe and the United States has unveiled the even bigger plane that it plans to fly around the world next year.
“It’s the most incredible airplane of its time,” Bertrand Piccard, the president and co-pilot of the Solar Impulse venture, told a crowd of supporters who gathered at Switzerland’s Payerne Air Field yesterday for the first public look at the aircraft, which has a 72 metre wingspan.
Solar Impulse 2’s huge wings are wider than those of a Boeing 747 and are covered in solar cells as thin as a human hair.
At its centre is a cockpit that will house one of the two Swiss pioneers who will pilot the machine, Mr Piccard and André Borschberg.
The aircraft is an evolution of the Solar Impulse prototype that broke a succession of world records for solar-powered flight last year, including a memorable tour of Europe and a multi-stage trip across America from coast to coast.
It also crucially flew all day and all night, powered by the batteries on board which had been charged by the solar cells during the day.
Speaking about the project, Mr Borschberg, described the new aircraft as “a major step up compared to the first one”.
“The first airplane was a kind of flying laboratory, and the second airplane we’re launching now is an airplane designed to travel,” Mr Borschberg said.
One of the biggest challenges in the round-the-world flight is the length of each step of the journey.
It’s 35,000 kilometres around the world, and at the gentle cruise achieved by a solar powered plane, anywhere between 36km/h and 140km/h, depending on altitude and wind, the pilots may spend five days aloft, alone inside the cockpit.
“And for that it has to be reliable,” said Mr Borschberg.
“We will cross oceans, we will have to fly at least 120 hours, which is ten times more than regular commercial flights, so reliability becomes that much more important.”
Solar Impulse 2 will have to set off from the coast of China with only a vague idea what the weather will be like the other side of the ocean in five or six days time.
So the new aircraft is a lot more robust than its predecessor: “We needed a plane with a lot more energy reserves, capable to fly through clouds, which the first one can’t do,” Mr Borschberg explained.
Much of the technology on board in terms of solar cells and carbon fibre structure is an evolution of the first Solar Impulse, rather than a revolution, but the pilot is particularly proud of the electric motors.
“We have electric motors now which have up to 94 per cent efficiency, including the electronics, the gearbox and the motor itself, which is amazingly high.”
The current plan is to set off from somewhere in the Middle East at the beginning of March 2015.
“Operationally it makes sense to start there because we’d like to fly over India and China before the monsoon starts.”
“The goal is to start crossing the Pacific about April 15th.
“So the entire flight flying times may take about 20 days and nights, but spread over three months.”
The aircraft itself is capable of almost endless flight, but that is not the case for the pilot, alone in the cockpit, who will have to stay awake and alert for extended periods of several days.
Mr Piccard and Mr Borschberg have simulated the experience in the laboratory.
Inside the cockpit they have a small sleeping area, and are expected to take 20-minute naps throughout the flight, a practice known as polyphasic sleep.
“I do a lot of yoga and meditation and breathing techniques which I have used, and Bertrand is using self-hypnosis to relax and get his energy back.”
The new aircraft has not flown yet, but Mr Borschberg expects it to be similar to its predecessor, with slow reactions that demand patience and anticipation from the pilot.
And what if something goes wrong mid-Atlantic?
The pilots have an integrated parachute and life raft in their seats, and they plan to be prepared.
“We do a lot of survival training, in June we will train with the German navy in the North Sea, we will also train with the Swiss Army.”
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