Going solo.
Related: Enjoy Your Flight
And that was first class!
"For this plane, the sky’s no limit" by John Heilprin | Associated Press April 10, 2014
PAYERNE, Switzerland — The original plane demonstrated that a solar-powered plane can fly through the night, hop from Europe to Africa, and cross the width of the United States.
But its successor needs to be able to stay in the air far longer, because the pilots expect the lumbering aircraft to take at least five days and five nights to cross the Pacific and Atlantic oceans on its journey around the globe next year.
The new version can theoretically stay airborne indefinitely, according to Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, who founded the Solar Impulse project over a decade ago. Piccard and Borschberg, who will pilot the plane, admit that now the pilot is the weakest link.
To help the pilot, the plane has an autopilot function, a toilet, a comfortable business-class seat, and enough space in the ergonomic cockpit for the pilot to lie down and either exercise a little bit, or get some rest.
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American businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett completed the longest nonstop flight in aviation history in 2006, flying 26,389 miles in about 76 hours but stopping because of mechanical problems.
Related: Fossett Found!
Compared to its predecessor, Solar Impulse 2 has better batteries for storing energy soaked up from the sun by the roughly 17,200 solar cells that cover the massive wings, which at 236 feet are equal to those of the largest passenger airplanes.
The wingspan is longer than the first prototype — longer even than the wings of a Boeing 747 — but the entire airplane still weighs only 2.54 tons, about the same as a family vehicle.
To maintain its weight budget, the updated plane uses lighter materials than the prototype. It also has more efficient electric motors.
That’s important, because although the journey will be broken up into several stages, the aircraft’s maximum speed of 87 miles per hour means it will have to stay in the air for several days in a row during the long transoceanic legs.
‘‘I think we’re going to be in this cockpit being aware of the privilege it is to fly in the first and only airplane that can stay in the air forever,’’ Piccard said.
Borschberg said the trip next year would take about 20 flying days, spread over three months. The pilots said they wanted to unveil the plane now because they just finished building it and will test it during May and June.
The first plane needed perfect weather each day to recharge the battery, and it was smaller and not built to be as trouble-free.
The new plane can cross small cloud layers, and ‘‘if it’s partly cloudy during the day we can cope with that as well,’’ Borschberg said.
It can’t fly in thunderstorms, but because it has no fuel restrictions the pilots can more easily wait out bad weather.
Borschberg said the pilots are training to fly long periods in a flight simulator, then resting for very short periods, using yoga, meditation, and breathing techniques. In simulations, the pilots also are experimenting, he said, with flying four days and sleeping just two hours a day, split into 20-minute stages.
‘‘It’s learning how do I feel, how do I react when I am too tired? It’s an exploration of oneself at the same time,’’ he said.
I don't know if I would want to be doing that thousands of feet in the air.
The solitary nature of the flight could be a problem. But adding a second seat would have meant adding too much weight to the plane because another parachute and more oxygen, water, and food also would have been needed.
The purpose of the round-the-world flight is to showcase cutting-edge renewable technologies developed by some 80 companies involved in the project. The plane is so energy efficient, Piccard said, that if its various technologies were deployed elsewhere the world, they could cut in half energy use in transportation, construction, housing, heating and cooling, and lighting.
Well, what are they waiting for?
‘‘What we really wanted to demonstrate is how many incredible things we can make with renewable energies, with clean technologies,’’ he said. ‘‘Because so often we believe that clean technologies is a limit, for comfort, for mobility, for prosperity. And it’s the opposite.’’
The day I see John Kerry globetrotting in one I'll start looking up.
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I'll be back to post more blogs when I land in the morning.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
"Airlines ask Congress to roll back airfare rule" Associated Press May 09, 2014
WASHINGTON — Airlines failed to block a federal rule making them tell passengers up front the full cost of airfare, including taxes and fees. So they’re trying another route, asking Congress to do what the Obama administration and the courts refuse to do: Roll back the law.
A bill in Congress would let airlines return to the old way of doing things, which was to emphasize in ads the base fare — the amount airlines charge passengers to fly — but reveal the full price separately.
The bill, supported by the industry and by pilot and flight-attendant unions, is moving through the House at Mach speed.
The bill is ‘‘a gift to the airlines,’’ said Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York. ‘‘What you’re going to see is $200 for the airfare, and then you’re going to be shocked when it turns out to really be $250. It’s misleading . . . It’s just dishonest.’’
That's the AmeriKan bu$ine$$ model in the 21st-century.
Related:
"Even with the turbulence of severe winter storms and stubbornly high fuel prices, many of the major airlines are cruising and their stock prices are soaring.
I'm shocked that I keep seeing these stories after a severe winter and spring that just won't start.
Mergers have reduced competition and made it easier for the airlines to limit the supply of seats and raise average fares. Extra fees bring in billions more each year.
Looks like extortion to me.
And reading those sentences it's clear that it is not only TSA that makes the airlines hated. For all but the elite it's smaller seats, shittier service, and exorbitant costs. That reduced competition cycle has something to do with it, too. Throughout AmeriKa's history it has enabled oligarchs and conglomerates to control and distort the economy as much as banks.
On Thursday, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines reported record profits for the first quarter, usually the weakest time for the airlines. That followed a rousing report from Delta Air Lines a day earlier."
Also see: US says average airfares rising slowly
Glad you could help with the record profits during their weakest time(?).
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Several airlines, supported by their trade group, had sued in federal court to overturn the current rule, but the court sided with the government, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the airlines’ appeal.
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Related: Airlines offering fewer flights, seats
Sorry for leaving your father behind on the that flight.
