Media, Arte, Cultura

Flying on sunlight

This week, Europe will watch the first solar powered airplane fly from Switzerland to Belgium

di Vita Sgardello

We’ve all heard the joke about the solar powered torch, a design conundrum that had playgrounds around the world chuckling until just a few years ago. Nowadays I’m not sure I’d leave for a camping trip without one, just in case my batteries ran out. I’m not sure there was ever a joke about solar powered airplanes, but that is not to say I thought I’d see one built in my life time. And yet here we are in 2011 about to witness the first international flight powered by sunlight.

Later on this week, an experimental solar powered aircraft, called Solar Impulse, will take off for a flight that will take it from Switzerland to Brussels. The single seated prototype, which is the brainchild of Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, made history several years ago when it became the first aircraft to fly for 24 hours non stop on solar power alone.

The airplane cost 123 million euros to make but its cost is far out shadowed by the risks that undertaking an journey through international airspace implies. “Flying an aircraft like Solar Impulse through European airspace to land at an international airport is an incredible challenge for all of us and success depends on the support we receive from all the authorities concerned,” said Andrè Borschberg, CEO of Solar Impulse and co-founder of the project along with Piccard.

After flying to Brussels the plane will make a second international journey to Paris so that the craft can be displayed at the International Air Show in June.

The CEO of Brussels Airport, Europe’s 14 th busiest, said that “this airplane, the first to function without fossil fuel and without emmitting CO2 symbolises maganificently the great efforts the aeronautical industry is making to develop new technologies for energy saving and increased use of renewable energies”.

Whether we will ever see the day in which commercial flights go solar is a question we will have to wait patiently to answer. But a 22 metre long plane taking off and flying across Europe without burning fossil fuel is bound to boost hopes that human activity and environmental friendliness can co-exist.

Follow the international flight live here: www.solarimpulse.com


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