Solar Impulse forced to land in Japan(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Solar Impulse forced to land in Japan
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32955880
5 comments
>The experimental craft, which is covered in 17,000 solar cells, took off from Abu Dhabi in March.
Its odd that when this was just working (last few month it flew pretty far) it didn't seem to get much coverage (I hadn't heard of it anyway). News is weird to me in that it like to focus in when things are going wrong, not when something remarkable is happening.
Hope this setback brings some additional coverage.
Its odd that when this was just working (last few month it flew pretty far) it didn't seem to get much coverage (I hadn't heard of it anyway). News is weird to me in that it like to focus in when things are going wrong, not when something remarkable is happening.
Hope this setback brings some additional coverage.
It's hard to sell several months of "it's still working". After the initial coverage, the only thing really worth talking about are the unexpected things and unexpected things tend to be bad.
That's still an incredible achievement!
It seems the shorter route (great circle) would've been via Kamchatka and Alaska.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=NKG-SFO
As you can see, flying via Hawaii is quite a detour.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=NKG-SFO
As you can see, flying via Hawaii is quite a detour.
They're not going for the short route, it's an endurance tour and also a small test run of their circumnavigation effort. The goal isn't just getting from A to B. Also staying near the equator gives them a better solar exposure as the sun will be directly overhead each day.
The earth tilts so the ideal location is between the Tropic of Cancer durring the Northern solstice, and Tropic of Capricorn durring the December or southern solstice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn
Also, Solar power per square meter is not the same..
They will continue when the conditions are better.