Solar plane completes first test flight
payerne (Switzerland) — The first solar plane aimed at reaching the stratosphere made an initial lowaltitude test flight over Switzerland on Friday.
The SolarStratos, a super-light, sleek, white two-seater aircraft with long wings covered with solar panels, took off from Payerne at 8am, according to a photographer at the airbase in western Switzerland.
“The maiden flight of the prototype ... went off without a hitch,” the SolarStratos team said in a statement.
Pilot Damian Hischier took the craft for a seven-minute test flight, reaching an altitude of 300 metres, it said. “The group will now study the test flight results before scheduling a longer flight at higher altitude,” the statement added. > SolarStratos is a super-light, sleek, white two-seater aircraft with long wings covered with solar panels. > The plane reached an altitude of 300 metres during the seven-minute test flight.
Eventually, the plane is expected to be able to fly at an altitude of 25,000 metres, an impossible feat using a propulsion-driven aircraft.
Swiss adventurer Raphael Domjan, who is behind the project, aims to take the plane on its first stratospheric flight next year.
“We must continue to work hard to learn how to harness the potential > It expects to fly at an altitude of 25,000 metres. > The plane is expected to go on its first stratospheric flight next year. > The weight of the plane is just 450 kilos. of this solar-powered treasure,” he said on Friday.
“We want to demonstrate that with current technology, it is possible to go beyond what fossil fuels offer,” he said.
The SolarStratos is 8.5 metres long, with long wings covered with 22 square metres of solar panels, which are meant to provide it with 24 hours of autonomous flying time. The plane weighs just 450 kilos.
Domjan, who in 2012 became the first person to sail around the world in a fully solar-powered boat, is aiming to go on a five-hour mission into the stratosphere: two hours up and three hours back.
The stratosphere lies above Earth’s lowest atmospheric layer, called the troposphere.
At middle latitudes, the stratosphere runs from a lower boundary of about 10,000 metres to an upper boundary of about 50,000 metres. Until now, reaching the stratosphere has required large quantities of energy or helium.
Reaching an altitude of 25,000 metres will pose huge technical and human challenges, SolarStratos points out on its website. —
Maiden flight completed without a hitch