Re: Solar powered airplanes

On Sep 13, 3:44 am, Tiger <Lana_sa...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
LIBERATOR wrote:
Is the government supressing the full capcity of solar powered power
cells, so that the oil industry is not threatened and replaced by
solar power?

The existing solar powered airplanes, how long is their flight
duration or distance before needing to land or switch to fuel?

Hmmmmm..... Solar Cells have been around for 40 years or so. Most Space
sats use solar power. So to say they have been supressed is not
accurate. Powering a Casio calculator and a plane are very different
requirements.  I would hate to go to a airport and hear my flight is
canceled because it was too cloudy or it was nightime.

Quite right however solar power aircraft I think will have a great
future mainly as patrol or relay aircraft.

This European (Swiss lead team) is planing a circumnavigation of the
globe over 3 weeks by a 3 ton solar powered aircraft by 2010.
That's right they are not going to land for 3 weeks. Awesome
project. Check out the engineering team and the flight team.
http://www.solarimpulse.com/en/challenge/index.php?idContent=57&idIndex=7

At present high grade commercial photovoltaic cells are about 22%
efficient at converting sunlight to electricity however higher
conversion efficiencies are possible (36% has been achieved) and some
polymers promise 60%.

With the power flux being about 860W/sqm in the lower atmosphere
power loadings of about 200W/sqm are the max possible.

Having said that solar powered aircraft may potentially fly higher
than jets and piston engined aircraft since there is not need to
supply oxygen to the engines. Helios I think has achieved 100,000ft.

The bigger issue is possibly power for opperation at night. Glide
ratios of 40:1 at 65km/h will provide sink rates of 1.6km/h so it
might be better to just glide overnight. Batteries are clearly a
problem but breakthroughs are happening all the time.

Self launching electric sail planes such as Antares are quite popular
in Europe as they provide noiseless 3-4 launches that won't irritate
the neighbors.

On another front: photovoltaic are down to less than $1.50 watt (eg
Cadmium Telluride) and there is perhaps only a price drop to $1.00 for
it to be fully competitive with conventional forms of power. Still
some work to do in storage though.

.

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