It was
nearing midnight on 10th of March 2015 at the Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmadabad, India. A small
crowd waited, anxiously looking towards the clear night sky. Exactly
after twenty minutes pass eleven in the night, they saw what they
were waiting for; a row of fourteen or fifteen blue bright LED
lights slowly travelling towards them. There was a murmur of
excitement as the big bird slowly landed on the air strip. The big
bird was the world's largest solar power operated airplane Solar
impulse 2 (Si2). So innovative and challenging is this mission, that
I want to describe it in the words originally used by US astronaut
Neil Armstrong, when the first man-made craft had landed on the moon,
now used to indicate the completion of a mission objective; “the
Eagle has landed.”
Solar
impulse 2 is a large plane with a carbon fiber wing with span (72 meters), that is even
longer than that of the Boeing Jumbo jet 747-81 (68.5 meters). Yet its
cockpit is tiny measuring just 3.8 cubic metres in volume, something
that is not much bigger than a public telephone box. The total weight
of the plane is only 2.3 tonnes, which well compares with the weight
of a family car. It moves forward with the thrust produced by four
propellers, each of which is 4 meters long. The propellers are
rotated by electric motors fixed underneath the wings.
Solar
impulse does not need any fuel as it flies on electric power produced
from sunlight by 17000 solar cells fixed on its wings. To facilitate
flying during night times or when weather is cloudy, designers have
provided it with the energy-dense lithium-ion polymer batteries that provide
power during night.
Solar
impulse 2 is piloted by Bertrand Piccard and Andre Boschberg,
co-pilots and co-founders of this experimental aircraft. They would
take turns to fly this single-seater aircraft in a journey around
the world, spread over 25 flight days of five months and covering
35,000 km. It will pass over the Arabian Sea, India, Myanmar, China
and the Pacific Ocean.
Swiss
made Solar Impulse 2 has taken these two promoters 12 years to
develop and carry out feasibility tests. Andre Borschberg is a
trained engineer and former air-force pilot, he has built a career as
an entrepreneur in internet technologies. Bertrand Piccard, who comes
from an illustrious family is well known for his ballooning exploits.
His father, Jacques Piccard, was the first to reach the deepest
place in the ocean in 1960. His grandfather, Auguste Piccard, was the
first person to take a balloon into the stratosphere in 1931. Perhaps
keeping this in mind, Bertrand completed the first non-stop,
circumnavigation of the world in 1999, using the Breitling Orbiter 3
balloon. Both the pilots have to fly solo on this mission; taking it
in turns. Piccard and Borschberg will be permitted only catnaps of
up to 20 mins and will have to stay alert for nearly all of the time
they are airborne.
The
solar powered plane began its world tour from the Al-Bateen airport
in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday 9th March
after taking off at 7.12 AM local time and touched down at Muscat,
the capital of Oman about 12 hours later with a trouble free flight.
It took off from Muscat International Airport in Oman at 06.35 AM
local time on Tuesday, 10th March and headed for
Ahmedabad in India and landed there at 11.24 PM on same day, covering
a distance of 1,465 km in 16 hours and flying over Pakistan airspace
for six hours. The plane will leave for Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh
state of India after about 4 days stop over in Ahmadabad. From
Varanasi, they will fly to Myanmar and from there to China.
Real
challenge for this around the world flight would be faced when Solar
impulse 2 flies over Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It will take
several days and nights of non-stop flying to complete these
journeys, because of the slow speed of their prop-driven plane.
Operating through darkness will be particularly important when the
men have to cross the Pacific and the Atlantic.
Many
readers are likely to treat Solar impulse 2 as some kind of publicity
stunt. According to the promoters, it is not so. Piccard and Borschberg think that it
is an initiative aimed at spreading the importance of renewable
energy and clean technologies. The Ahmadabad stay of two days would
be used for the pilots to hold meetings with government officials,
stakeholders and civil society members. The Aditya Birla Group is the
India host for Solar Impulse 2.
Mr.
Bertrand Piccard has issued a press release in which he says;
“Solar
Impulse was not built to carry passengers but to carry messages. We
want to demonstrate the importance of innovation and pioneering
spirit, to encourage people to question their old certitudes and
habits. The world needs to implement new ways of improving the
quality of life. Clean technologies and renewable forms of energy are
part of the solution, as they can simultaneously protect the
environment and create jobs and profits for the industry,”
Andre
Borschberg, co-founder and chief executive of the Solar Impulse
project says; “This project is a human project, it is a human
challenge,”
Let us
all wish the duo, happy and successful flight in their endeavour.
12th
March 2015
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