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Solar-powered plane attempts first round-the-world flight

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(CNN)The Solar Impulse 2 took off from Abu Dhabi on Monday on the first leg of its quest to be the first plane to fly around the world fueled only by the sun's rays. (www.cnn.com) More...

Torsten Hoff
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joelwiley
joel wiley 3
The Nanjing Hawaii leg should prove interesting 4400 nautical miles at 35 knots -
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TorstenHoff
Torsten Hoff 2
Anyone know how much of a tailwind they can expect on that route at ~6000 feet?
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Jack370
Jack370 1
Here is the latest direct link to Solar2 data on Radar24:
http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/hb-sib/#5b6e3b7
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Jack370
Jack370 1
Not sure why there is no tracking for this historic flight yet. It might be a security concern since it only flys at about an average of 35 Knots.
The Swiss tail number is HB-SIB and there are a few records on www.FlightRadar24.com.
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AnnemarieStefenelli
Annemarie Stefenelli 1
I am awed. My congratulations to the technicians who made that possible. T h a t is what I call progress!
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xairbusdriver
Jim Smirh 2
Reminds me of my "flight following" for a friend while he practiced his ballooning skills! ;-) Sounds like the PNF drives to the next destination to "change seats"! I suppose he will use a bass boat during the ocean hopping flights? Seriously, I thought the flights were to carry both pilots, but I didn't catch that in the article. Maebey meye furst misteake of thee yeer?
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MMPilot
MMPilot -3
Thats no progress, thats only window dressing PR, spoiling 150 Mio EU. Can somebody tell me, how such a project with a fragile vehicle crawling with 35 knots ever will launch a solar powered aircraft with 400 passengers and an energy equivalence of 100tons fuel. There is a great gap between phantasy and reality. The laws of aerodynamics, structuraldynamics, thermodynamics and weather impact say no and never.
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BaronG58
BaronG58 6
Similar comments were made to Orville and Wilbur.
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paultrubits
paul trubits -2
I ride my bike that fast and you do not here the broadcasters on the Tour de France mention my name. Maybe if everybody pedaled instead? The Americas cup sailboats go much faster than that. God bless them for trying!
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TWA55
TWA55 0
No thanks, not sure what the point is here, but the safety of flying just took a dip.
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Moviela
Ric Wernicke -3
I read that in 1980 Berkeley used transmutation to turn base metal into gold. They used $120K of accelerator beam to produce a few atoms of gold. Why bother?

All power on earth is solar. Converting photons into electricity to drive a propeller is the least effective way to fly. The same photons have for billions of years allowed plankton to do their work, and mother nature turned them into fossil fuels. It is a continuous process. We cannot stop it, or make it work faster. We don't need to do that, there is more than we can use.

It occurs to me that a simple three stop Round The World ticket in coach can be had for $1500, just a little more than an ounce of gold. Why bother with a photovoltaic airplane?
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Jack370
Jack370 4
The flight of Solar2 is not about material gain, it's about the advancement of technology and knowledge. There is no direct link between the quest for knowledge and understanding to material gain. The material gains usually do follow the knowledge but are typically not fully understood at the time the knowledge is attained.
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MH370
MH370 -1
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31772140
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anthony96
anthony geinopolos -8
It will go missing
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Jack370
Jack370 2
The biggest concern is if it can survive bad weather or staying away from it. They had years to evaluate the batteries and know of all the latest problems so that's not likely a major risk.
These guys are extremely brave to fly this thing across any large oceans if they do indeed continue. So far it's been a few short jaunts around the Arabian Peninsula and look more like test flights than anything very serious so far.
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mattwestuk
Matt West 1
A report I read stated that it contained high-energy lithium batteries for storing a charge to allow night time flying. Nothing can go wrong with those things, right?
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anthony96
anthony geinopolos -9
It will crash
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w7psk
Ricky Scott 0
(Duplicate Squawk Submitted)

Solar Powered A/C starts round the world flight

Wonder if they have ADSB for tracking :) this seems like a very interesting flight to follow.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31772140
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ah6oy
Jim DeTour 1
This links background if jave is enabled will have a cickable and zoomable map showing Solar2's rea time locations. PLUS java running a live stream youtube video of the flight deck. http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-8-from-Nagoya-to-Hawaii
Or just www.solarimpulse.com .

Here is the youtube live link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-H9_1vV8NQ#t=4302
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