Solar plane has crossed Atlantic

emo72

Weise (fair play) just posted a link in the flight radar thread. 90 hours new York to Seville? Heard that on the radio this morning, but don't quote me on that!

Aerohead

Sure that's in the news today , but why post another link one is enough

Anyway here
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36573970

emo72

Aerohead wrote: »

Sure that's in the news today , but why post another link one is enough

Anyway here
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36573970

I know there's a link in the radar thread, but maybe it deserves its own thread. Anyway a plane crossing the Atlantic on solar power, what times we live in. I'm sure they worked out the weather for this, winds would want to be favourable.

longshanks

A solar powered plane flying through the night?

martinsvi

longshanks wrote: »

A solar powered plane flying through the night?

http://www.solarimpulse.com/infocard-Batteries

Shannon757

It's already crossed the Pacific.

RoisinD

om flightradar 24 https://www.flightradar24.com/SOLAR2/a148084

emo72

god its crawling across. 14 hours so far. just wondering if things dont go to plan is ireland considered an emergency stop?

martinsvi

emo72 wrote: »

god its crawling across. 14 hours so far. just wondering if things dont go to plan is ireland considered an emergency stop?

it looks like they're aiming for the jet stream with St. John's being the entry point. This should speed things up quite a bit with the core of the stream being 110kt. Spain being the destination, I would guess using Ireland as an alternate is very unlikely, they should be closer to Azores than Ireland once they get closer to Europe

Irish Steve

They're doing a lot better now than they were, when I looked earlier, they were at about 12,000 Ft and doing under 20 Kts, they're now at 28,000 now and doing nearly 60 Kts, which is a lot better than earlier.

shedweller

I went into my flight radar app and searched for solar2 but it didn't show up. Is there another name i can look up?

Edit: i found it. Just a little south west of newfoundland.

crosstownk

shedweller wrote: »

I went into my flight radar app and searched for solar2 but it didn't show up. Is there another name i can look up?

Edit: i found it. Just a little south west of newfoundland.

Maybe it's out of range at the moment? - not all TA flights show except those with the FAA delayed signal.

Solar2 isn't found in the link above either (at the time of this post).

emo72

Just had a look there, it looks a couple of hundred miles east of Newfoundland. Not far out.

martinsvi

I wonder what happened? Last night it was doing 90kts at 30,000 ft, now it's back down again to 3,000 and crawling

phonypony

martinsvi wrote: »

I wonder what happened? Last night it was doing 90kts at 30,000 ft, now it's back down again to 3,000 and crawling

The sun set.

martinsvi

phonypony wrote: »

The sun set.

so? aren't batteries generating enough power? + it's been well into sunshine for couple of hours already

phonypony

martinsvi wrote: »

so? aren't batteries generating enough power? + it's been well into sunshine for couple of hours already

It climbs up as high as possible during the day and then drifts down in a glide to conserve the batteries until it gets to about 3000 feet. The batteries provide power to maintain altitude until the sun comes out and it can climb again. Bear in mind it only does about 30KIAS straight and level, it is climbing, but very slowly...

martinsvi

phonypony wrote: »

It climbs up as high as possible during the day and then drifts down in a glide to conserve the batteries until it gets to about 3000 feet. The batteries provide power to maintain altitude until the sun comes out and it can climb again. Bear in mind it only does about 30KIAS straight and level, it is climbing, but very slowly...

goodness sake, I will never complain about C150 speed ever again

Shannon757

Has it landed yet?

vicwatson

Shannon757 wrote: »

Has it landed yet?

No, its north east of Flores Island (part of the azores)

https://www.flightradar24.com/SOLAR2/a18157a

emo72

the jet stream brought it down to the azores alright. but if it wanted to stay in it it would have brought it straight to us.

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream;sess=

fair play though, its made it to the azores already.

lintdrummer

Video of the landing here: https://www.periscope.tv/w/1RDGlwLLYZqKL