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solar impulse team's next challenge: to circle the globe

  • Magazine Feature Article
  • 13MOMD0830_04
Published August 30, 2013 by SAE International in United States
Language:
  • English

THE NEXT WORLD-GIRDLING VERSION OF THE FUEL-LESS FLIER WILL RELY ON FEATHERWEIGHT POLYMERS AND COMPOSITES.

NOW THAT WE'VE FOLLOWED SOLAR IMPULSE -the solar electric ultralight with the wingspan of an Airbus A340 airliner-make its stately way across North America, it's good to remember that there is more to come, perhaps by 2015. For the Solar Impulse (HB-SIA) is just the prototype for an as-yet-unnamed plane that is being built and tested right now. It is with this very similar but somewhat larger aircraft, designated HB-SIB, that Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg are to circle the Earth without burning fuel, the latest of a long line of classic aviation challenges.

The HB-SIB's project engineers are, for example, currently testing the airworthiness of the plane's polyurethane foam cockpit shell at the RUAG Large Subsonic Wind Tunnel in Emmen, Switzerland, said Richard Northcote, head of sustainability for Bayer MaterialScience, which is a technical sponsor of the Solar Impulse project and is supplying the cockpit structure and the cabin door. Other team members are meanwhile simulating the in-flight behavior of the materials of the second aircraft, which will need to be even more mass-efficient than the first model.