How Does a Solar Plane Fly at Night?

Look at the recent reports of solar energy in Switzerland can fly day and night, then, just by solar energy collection enough? If the night how to do it? According to media reports, the first inverter power by the sun to launch the aircraft by the Swiss explorer Bertrand Picard led 80 engineering and technical personnel spent 12 years to complete the design. "solar power batteries are the world's first can not add any fuel, does not emit any pollutants in the circumstances, the flight day and night aircraft. From the United States take off in California, without the addition of fuel in the case, completely rely on solar energy arrived in New York, caused quite a stir.

During the day the battery reserves the energy glide slowly at night

Sunshine Power aircraft made of carbon fiber, wingspan 72 meters, but its weight is only 2300 kg, with a car's weight quite. A total of 17,000 solar power batteries are mounted in the wing, providing clean energy for the four electric motors on the machine (17.5 CV per motor). On-board lifepo4 battery weighs 633 kilograms (2077 pounds), during the day, the solar power batteries will be charged into the on-board lifepo4 battery power for the night flight reserve power, therefore, the power of the sun power to a steady stream. Designed to have an average speed of 70 kilometers per hour and climb to a height of 9000 meters during the day to avoid airflow and maximize solar energy, the temperature rose sharply and at half-glide flight down to 1,500 meters at night The speed is not fast, so the demand for energy at night is also greatly reduced.


Sunshine solar power generator can not fly in bad weather, so the weather team needs to do weather forecasting work. In addition, the aircraft's flight speed will be slower, the plane flew from Beijing to London about 120 hours of flight, and fuel aircraft only 11-12 hours. Due to the different flight height during the day and night, resulting in a large temperature difference in the aircraft. In order to maximize energy savings, the aircraft did not install heating equipment, which pilots is a big challenge. This means that they have to endure the 30 solar street lamp discharge degree to minus 20 degrees extreme temperature. Only one pilots in each segment need to drive five consecutive days and nights, as the pilot must adhere to the training to ensure the body's tolerance and sustainability.

The plane was not built to carry passengers, but to convey the idea. Its global flight is designed to show clean technology and renewable energy photovoltaic module border grounding standards is how to challenge the limits of the task seems impossible to complete.

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