First round the world solar flight

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Next leg delayed again

The next leg of the solar-powered Solar Impulse 2 round-the-world flight attempt has been delayed due to bad weather over China.
The plane arrived in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Varanasi, India, over a week ago, where its pilots have been waiting for the bad weather to clear up before setting off for Chongqing, China.
A tentative departure date has now been set for Sunday, for what is expected to be one of the most challenging stages of the trip thus far.
The flight — an estimated 1,375km journey expected to take roughly 20 hours — will expose the plane and its pilot to extremely cold weather conditions.
With the flight path running parallel to the Himalayas, the temperature in the cockpit is expected to drop to -20°C.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Take off in about an hour.

Solar Impulse will take off for its fifth flight from Mandalay (Mandalay International Airport, MDL/VYMD) in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, to Chongqing (Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport, CKG/ZUCK) in the People's Republic of China. The pilot will fly the zero-fuel airplane on about 1375km (742NM) for an estimated time of 20 hours.

http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-5-from-Mandalay-to-Chongqing

live feed

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Live feed from cockpit, groundcontrol and under wing cameras. Also live google earth route plotter.

http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-5-from-Mandalay-to-Chongqing

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Bumping because the landing is in less that an hour and the live feed is really rather good.



they were hoping for a quick turnaround and launch from Chongqing though it seems this will not be possible. This transmission will cover the landing though.
Link is in previous post from earlier today....

and yes I have been watching it all day because it is one hell of an achievement and i have 5 monitors in my sitting room

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

After an extended stopover caused by bad weather the launch for the next leg of this extraordinary journey is imminent

LEG 6/12 Chongqing to Nanjing


the launch is c. 22.00 GMT +1

live feed and more here......
http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-6-from-Chongqing-to-Nanjing

 

[MRCL]

Nice dudes, those two. I'm talking to them occasionally and handling their flight plans *brag*

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Brag some more then,....... brag here.
Share what you can Dude.

 

[MRCL]

Well I guess I can't really give out detailed flight information as I don't know about the confidentiality of those. We receive the flight plans well in advance and also handle their overflight permissions and stuff. They do their hole preparation via us.

 

[dorsetknob]

Nice dudes, those two. I'm talking to them occasionally and handling their flight plans *brag*

Ah THE
"""Six degrees of separation """

This explains the above
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

AND this is Kevin Bacon explaining it ( infomercial )

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Solar Impulse has arrived in Nanjing in the east of China.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard set down the prop-driven vehicle at 23:30 local time (15:30 GMT), following a 1,200km journey from Chongqing in the west of the country.

The next 10 days will be spent giving Solar Impulse a thorough servicing.

Meteorologists on the Swiss team, which has its mission control in Monaco, will then look for a suitable weather window for the ocean flight.
It will be done in two stages, with the first reaching over to Hawaii - a distance from Nanjing of 8,000km. For the slow-moving aircraft, this will entail being airborne continuously for several days and nights.

In simulations done last year, the weather opening was found quite quickly, but the team recognises also that its stay in Nanjing could be a long one.
"I think 10 days is the time we need to get ready. Then we need to wait for a good weather window," explained mission director Raymond Clerc.
"That could be three days; we could have to wait three weeks - because this leg is really the most important and is very complex. To go towards Hawaii could last five days and five nights."

Bertrand Piccard has been sharing the flying duties in the single-seater with his business partner, Andre Borschberg. And it is Borschberg, the trained engineer, who will take the controls for the leg to Hawaii.

So far, Solar Impulse has covered about 7,000km since leaving Abu Dhabi, UAE, on 9 March.


The landing show has the landing from min 48 in this 98 min show.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

No launch before 12th May is the latest news
but get ready for the big one.....5 uninterrupted days solo flying across the Pacific Ocean, from Nanjing to Hawaii.

A flight that’s expected to last 120 hours, or five full days. If it’s successful, it would shatter the record for the duration of a solo aircraft flight: 67 hours and one minute, set by the late adventurer Steve Fossett in his Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer while circumnavigating the globe.
The Solar Impulse 2 is much, much slower, which is why they will likely break the duration record over a much shorter distance. "The plane itself flies between 25 and 30 knots, which is quite slow," Piccard says. "And you have to add the speed of the wind. When I went to China, I started to fly backward, which is quite strange in an airplane."

The Nanjing-to-Hawaii leg will be piloted by Borschberg, while Piccard monitors the aircraft and encourages him via satellite phone from mission control in Switzerland. "We are supporting each other with our personal experience," says Piccard, who is scheduled to fly the aircraft’s subsequent leg from Hawaii to Arizona. "So when I fly, he can give me some advice, support me, and so on, and that will be the case when I fly to Phoenix."

Sleeping in 20-minute spurts sounds unpleasant, but there’s precedent for it: polyphasic sleep is the fairly well-established practice of disregarding the body’s natural desire to sleep once per day, and some have managed to keep it up for years on end. Borschberg will augment that meager sleep schedule with a regimen of stretching and yoga poses in his cramped cabin to stay alive, awake, and alert. "In between [naps], we use all the techniques… yoga and meditation, and I’ve adapted these to the conditions of the airplane. So I will use these breathing techniques that you get from yoga to stimulate the mind, to keep the right mindset, to stimulate the body," he tells me. There’s no room to stand up, but the pilots can change positions, sit up, and lay down.

Flying the Solar Impulse 2 long distances requires a daily routine that involves climbing to 28,000 feet in the morning to capture sunlight and descending to just 3,000 feet at night to conserve energy. There’s not much margin for error in keeping the batteries charged enough for flight, either. "When you fly east, you have shorter nights. This is important for us, because if the night is too long, we don’t have enough energy storage for the entire night," Piccard says.

Before anyone asks........."We have a toilet on board, so we really try to have a sustainable life. I try to eat normally, I go to the toilet normally," said Borschberg.

Borschberg is equipped with a parachute and can bail out if the toilet system fails.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Sun-powered Solar Impulse 2 begins most dangerous leg in journey across world as pilot takes off on six-day flight over Pacific.
The longest solo flight in history


In flight stream
http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-7-from-Nanjing-to-Hawaii

Pilot Andre Borschberg, 62, took off from Nanjing, in eastern China, early on Sunday morning and will head east towards Hawaii. The 5,270 mile journey is expected to take six days and six nights.

Speaking just hours before take off, Mr Borschberg said: 'I cross my fingers and I hope to cross the Pacific. We have a good weather window, which means we have a stable corridor to reach Hawaii.'
The current flight plan saw no threat from typhoons, a typical weather threat in Asia.

The plane arrived in China from Myanmar on 31 March for what was expected to be a brief stop-over. But it took two months for the weather conditions to be right for take off.
Mr Borschberg, who trained as a fighter pilot in the Swiss air force, will face extreme temperatures in the unpressurised and unheated 3.8-cubic-metre cockpit.
Educated as a mechanical engineer and later becoming an entrepreneur, Mr Borschberg said he will use yoga to deal with the stress to his body during the flight.
He will try to stay awake for most of the flight, only allowing himself short catnaps in his seat, which doubles as a bed.
Despite the potential danger - failure could mean a parachute descent into the ocean, far from any rescue ship - the pilot has downplayed the risk of the flight.

He said: 'I don't see it [as[ risky, in the sense that we worked a long time on all these different questions. In the worst case, we have a parachute, we have a life raft and we know how to use it.
'Of course, hoping that we will not need to do that.'

Planners had identified airports in Japan should the plane need to make a stop because of technical problems, but the open ocean offered no such possibility, he said.
He added: 'As soon as we leave this part of the world, then afterwards we are in the open sea. There is no way to come back.'

Solar Impulse 2 is powered by more than 17,000 solar cells built into wings that, at 72 metres, are longer than those of a Boeing 747 and approaching those of an Airbus A380 superjumbo.
The plane is the successor of Solar Impulse, which notched up a 26-hour flight in 2010, proving its ability to store enough power in lithium batteries during the day to keep flying at night.

Ridiculed by the aviation industry when it was first unveiled, the Solar Impulse venture has since been hailed around the world, including by UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

Vid from BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32946874

 

[Steevo]

It is cool, but meaningless. And considering that a tiny piece of plutonium requires little shielding and can use a Stirling engine and radioisotope generator and wouldn't need batteries, and would run for a minimum of 80 some years.....

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/rps/docs/APP RPS Pu-238 FS 12-10-12.pdf

1Kg of the ceramic fuel could produce 5000W of heat energy, and the cooling side of the engine can house a (albeit low efficiency) thermoelectric coupler and or run a generator off the shaft output of the Stirling engine.

 

[dorsetknob]

@Steevo

Do You realise how much and how heavy the Shielding would be for a radioisotope generator and Kg of the ceramic fuel
for the power output it would not pull back your foreskin let alone Fly any plane

 

[Steevo]

@Steevo

Do You realise how much and how heavy the Shielding would be for a radioisotope generator and Kg of the ceramic fuel
for the power output it would not pull back your foreskin let alone Fly any plane

Yeah, I do.

Paper will shield you from the scary alpha (helium) particles. I suppose the part in the NASA paper where they mention that escaped you?

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Plutonium powered spacecraft is completely different to a solar powered aircraft circumnavigating the globe.

 

[AsRock]

Well the pilot needs to get out and take a dump at some point Joking aside i still think it's impressive seeing as it uses only solar power. Sent an application to one of the partner companies the other day, Altran, so lets see how that works out

all that money and they could not put a hole in the seat HA.

Yeah i watched this on my Roku 3 this morning looked kinda cool but i still find the Concord a much more impressive craft. Sure that's missing the point i guess but at least the Concord could take passengers lol.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Poor weather conditions could hamper a record-breaking attempt to cross the Pacific Ocean using a solar-powered plane.

Live cockpit

The Solar Impulse craft is a day into what was expected to be a 130-hour journey from China to Hawaii.

However, meteorologists say the forecast is worsening.

They have asked the pilot to stay in a holding pattern while they decide whether he should continue or turn back towards land.

They will reassess the situation at a team briefing at 08:00 GMT Monday.



EDIT : The aircraft is to return to Nanjing

 

[dorsetknob]

Thats a shame that they have to return because of the weather
the pilot must be feeling very stressed above and beyond what one would normally expect him to be suffering on a journey of this magnitude

@AsRock i'm sure the pilot is wearing his Stadium buddy for those needs

 

[Fourstaff]

They will get another try to cross half of the Pacific as long as the plane stays intact, so this is not the end yet.

 

[dorsetknob]

Your Right they will try and try again until they either succeed or do a Glen miller

"update"
he just landed in Japan

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Wing damage grounds Solar Impulse in Japan

Solar Impulse 2's plans to circle the world were put on hold after a storm damaged the plane's wing. Repairs, which organizers called a "little delay," will take about a week, and then the plane will take off for Hawaii.
The wing of the Solar Impulse 2, the solar-powered plane attempting to fly around the world, was damaged by wind gusts and rain while on the ground during storms in Japan, the project's organizers announced on Wednesday.

"The technical team already started to build some spare parts but it will keep us on the ground for at least one week before we can carry on," Bertrand Piccard, the head of the project and one of Solar Impulse 2's pilots, told reporters. "It's not a big issue for the project itself but it's a little additional delay."

The plane had taken off from Nanjing in eastern China on Sunday for what was expected to be an 8,175-kilometer (5,080-mile), six-day flight to Hawaii, but bad weather over the Pacific led organizers to land the plane in Nagoya, Japan, on Monday. The flight had previously been delayed for over a month because of weather concerns.

"There was so much wind and gusts that this cover started to shake on the wing and damaged an aileron on the trailing edge of the wing," Piccard, the head of the project, said in a video posted on the expedition's website.

The aileron, which is a hinge on the wing used to control a plane's roll, was damaged before a support team was able to inflate a portable hanger for the plane in Japan.

The LEDs on the front edge of the plane's wings on its approach to the Nagoya runway


here is an overlong video

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

TOKYO // The pilot of Solar Impulse 2 says his aircraft is now ready to head off from its unplanned stopover in Japan but must wait out unfavourable weather, perhaps for up to two months.

Andre Borschberg, pilot of the solar-powered plane that began its round-the-world flight attempt in Abu Dhabi, said it could take weeks for a weather front stretching from Alaska to Taiwan to clear enough for him to leave Nagoya, in central Japan.

“Obviously, the goal is not to take risks but to get there safely,” the Swiss national told reporters in Tokyo.

“The front, physically, it’s like a wall. It’s too cloudy. It’s too rainy. It’s too bumpy,” he said. “What we need is to find a weak spot in this `wall’ so we can fly over.”

Mr Borschberg diverted to Nagoya due to weather worries while travelling from Nanjing in China to Hawaii, at 8,175 kilometres, the longest leg of its journey, which began in the UAE on March 9.

He said his plane, which was slightly damaged by a cover tousled by the wind while on the ground in Nagoya, is fully repaired and ready to go.

The flight to Hawaii will take five or six days. The airplane carries no fuel, so project engineers use simulations to decide if it is safe to fly.

http://www.thenational.ae/uae/envir...-damaged-on-round-world-flight-from-abu-dhabi

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Ocean Crossing To Hawaii : the Moment of Truth.
Will the third time be lucky?
This is it........either he makes it, or he ditches in the Pacific

Solar Impulse took off from Nagoya Airfield in Japan at 18:03 GMT on Sunday and is scheduled to land in Hawaii in approximately 120 hours.

Solar Impulse said on its website that pilot Andre Borschberg had passed the point of no return.

LIVE FEED
http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-8-from-Nagoya-to-Hawaii

BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33244912

 

[dorsetknob]

On a somber note
there have been many pilots leaving Nagoya Airfield in Japan in the past that also also passed the point of no return ( Kamikaze )
I Hope that pilot Andre Borschberg having also passed the point of no return. has a safe landing