At 28,000 feet above sea level, at an average speed of about 25 miles per hour, a phenomenon was flying. It looked awkwardly ‘different’ for an airplane. The wings looked huge and the tail was extraordinarily straight. This phenomenon which goes by the name of “Solar Impulse” is a solar powered experimental plane. On Thursday, Solar Impulse completed its first test flight of 26 hours, powered overnight by the energy collected from the sun during a single day in Switzerland.
What importance does this project hold? A lot, to say the least. For the first time, it has been demonstrated that a plane can fly indefinitely, using the stored power in the batteries when the sunlight is absent and recharging batteries during daytime. The team which executed this project eventually plans to fly their craft around the world using solar power.
The success of this project can be best summed up in the words of Mr. Bertrand Piccard, the project’s co-founder, which he said to Andre Borschberg, the pilot of the craft. “When you took off it was another era. You land in a new era where people understand that with renewable energy you can do impossible things.” A bow to this spirit and a bow to this achievement.
Popularity: 1% [?]
