May 12th, 2013

The summer of 2010 will go down in aviation history forever. First manned plane on solar panels made a non-stop flight lasting more than a day. Unique prototype SOLAR PLANE HB-SIA is the brainchild of a Swiss company SolarImpulse and its permanent president, Bertrand Picard.

In his message posted on the company's website after successful tests aircraft , Picard noted: “Until this day, we could not really count on anyone's trust. Now we can really show the entire political and economic world that this technology works.”

In the early morning of July 7, thanks to the energy generated by 12,000 solar cells, installed on a wing with a length of more than 64 meters (quite comparable to the dimensions of the Airbus A340 airliner), an unusual-looking single-seat aircraft weighing one and a half tons took off from the airfield in Payerne (Switzerland). At the helm sat one of the founders, 57-year-old Swiss pilot and businessman Andre Borschberg.

“It was the most amazing flight of my life,” he remarked after landing. “I just sat and watched the battery level go up every hour and wondered if there was enough capacity for the whole night. And as a result, 26 hours flew by without a single drop of fuel and any environmental pollution!”

Not first solar powered aircraft, built by man, but the first to cross the border between day and night with a pilot on board.

Models SOLAR PLANES began to appear in the 1970s with the introduction of the first affordable photovoltaic cells to the market, and manned flights began in the 80s. An American team led by Paul McCready created a 2.5kW Solar Challenger aircraft that achieved impressive hours of flight. In 1981, he managed to cross the English Channel. And in Europe, Günther Rochelt from Germany took to the skies on his own model Solair 1, equipped with two and a half thousand cells with a total power of about 2.2 kW.

In 1990, American Eric Raymond crossed the United States in his Sunseeker. However, the journey with twenty stops took more than two months (121 hours of flight), and the longest segment was about 400 kilometers. Weighed model aircraft only 89 kilograms and was equipped with silicon solar panels.

In the mid-90s, several such aircraft took part in the Berblinger competition at once: they were faced with the task of reaching a height of 450 meters and holding out on solar energy of the order of 500 watts per square meter of wing. The prize in 1996 went to the model of Prof. Wojta-Nietzschmann from the University of Stuttgart, whose Icare II had a 25-meter energy wing with an area of ​​26 square meters. meters.

In 2001, AeroVironment's Helios solar drone, designed specifically for NASA and with a wingspan of more than 70 meters, managed to reach a height of more than 30 kilometers. Two years later, he got into a turbulence zone and disappeared somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

In 2005, a small drone with a wingspan of about 5 meters by Alan Cocconi and his company AC Propulsion for the first time successfully completed a flight lasting more than 48 hours. Due to the energy accumulated during the daytime, aircraft was capable of night flight. Finally, in 2007-2008, the Anglo-American company QuinetiQ carried out successful flights of its aircraft Zephyr lasting 54 and 83 hours. The car weighed about 27 kg, the wingspan was 12 m, and the flight altitude exceeded 18 km.

Project solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse I would hardly have been able to get out of the diaper of drawings and sketches, if not for the energy of the tireless Bertrand Picard - a doctor, traveler, businessman and record-breaking aviator. However, genes also seem to have helped.

The grandfather of the innovator, Auguste Picard, is a famous physicist, a friend of Einstein and Marie Curie, one of the pioneers of aviation and underwater affairs, the inventor of the first deep-sea apparatus and stratospheric balloon. Overcoming a 15-kilometer height in a balloon in the early 30s, he became the first person in the world to see with his own eyes the curvature of the surface of the globe.

Then Auguste was pulled down, and the inventor built a deep-sea apparatus, which he called the bathyscaphe. After several joint dives, his son Jacques Picard became so interested in exploring the mysteries of the oceans that he became one of the pioneers who visited the bottom of the Mariana Trench (depth 11 km.). Then, taking the work of his father as a basis, Jacques built the world's first submarine for tourists, as well as a mesoscaphe for exploring the Gulf Stream.

Thanks to his father, Bertrand Piccard, who was born in 1958, had a unique opportunity to get to know prominent people who largely determined his future: the famous Swiss rescue pilot Hermann Geiger, with whom he made the first flight over the Alps, the record-breaking diver Jacques Mayol, who taught him to dive in Florida, one of the pillars of the world astronautics, Wernher von Braun, who introduced him to astronauts and NASA employees.

At the age of 16, returning from Florida after another practical course in deep diving, Bertrand made his first air trip, discovering a hang glider. Is it any wonder that it was he who soon became one of the pioneers of this sport in Europe. Years later, Picard not only became the founder of the Swiss Hang Gliding Federation and a professional instructor, but also tried everything possible: aerial acrobatics, balloon launches, parachuting. Several times, Picard became the European champion in this sport, and finally, he was the first to fly over the Swiss-Italian Alps on a trike.

Unnoticed "air" hobby became for him also a professional laboratory. Interested in the behavior of people in extreme situations, Picard entered the department of psychiatry and a few years later received a doctorate in psychotherapy from the Medical Faculty of the University of Lausanne, after which he opened his own practice. The subject of particular interest for Bertrand was the technique of medical hypnosis: he received the missing knowledge both at the universities of Europe and the USA, and from the followers of Taoism in Southeast Asia.

It was this interest that brought Picard back to the sky. In 1992, Chrysler staged the first ever transatlantic race on balloons dubbed the Chrysler Challenge. The Belgian aviator Wim Vershtraten invited Picard as a co-pilot - he was sure that having a psychotherapist on board who knew the practice of hypnosis could be a good advantage over the rest of the teams. And so it happened. The crew of Verstraten and Picard easily passed the marathon and won the historic race, landing in Spain after a five-day flight of five thousand kilometers.

For Picard, flying was not just a revelation, but also a new way of interacting with nature. After 18 years of flying on a hang glider, he had a new dream - to fly around the world without a motor and rudder, relying on the will of the wind.

And the dream came true. Even if not on the first try. The sponsors were the Swiss watch manufacturer Breitling and the International Olympic Committee. On January 12, 1997, after three years of preparation, a balloon called the Breitling Orbiter took off from an airfield in Switzerland, but due to technical problems, it landed after six hours. The Breitling Orbiter 2 took off in February 1998 but again failed to reach its destination. This time the stop took place in Burma, after the Chinese authorities denied Picard an air corridor. This flight was the longest balloon trip in history (over nine days), but the goal was still not reached.

Finally, the third balloon left Switzerland in March 1999 and landed in Egypt after a continuous flight of almost 20 days and more than 45,000 kilometers. With his unprecedented journey, Picard broke seven world records, earned several honorary scientific titles and entered encyclopedias along with his famous father and grandfather.

The Breitling Orbiter 3 is housed at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in the US, and Bertrand Piccard has written several books and has been a welcome guest at numerous lectures and seminars.

In 2003, the indefatigable Picard announced a new, even more ambitious undertaking, undertaking the creation of a manned solar powered aircraft capable of circumnavigating the entire globe. This is how the project came about SolarImpulse.

Picard's partner and indispensable CEO of the company was the Swiss pilot and businessman Andre Borschberg. He was born in Zurich, graduated in engineering from the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Lausanne (EPFL), received a degree in management from the legendary Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has since accumulated vast experience as a founder and manager of a wide variety of business projects. In addition, with early years Andre was fond of aviation - he studied at the Swiss Air Force School and received more than a dozen licenses giving the right professional management airplanes and helicopters of all conceivable categories.

Borshberg worked for five years at McKinsey, one of the largest consulting companies in the world, after which he founded his own venture capital fund, launched two high-tech companies and created a charitable foundation.

In 2003, in Lausanne, Picard and Borschberg conducted preliminary studies that confirmed the fundamental engineering feasibility of realizing Picard's concept. Calculations confirmed that to create aircraft on solar panels theoretically possible. In November 2003, the project was officially launched and prototype development began.

Since 2005, the Royal Institute of Meteorology in Brussels has been simulating trial virtual flights of a model aircraft in real conditions at Geneva and Zurich airports. The main task there was a calculation of the optimal route, because for a long time to be under the clouds covering the sun, SOLAR PLANE could not. And finally, in 2007, the production of the aircraft began.

In 2009, the firstborn HB-SIA was ready for test flights. In the process of creating the design, the engineers faced two main tasks. Should have kept the weight down aircraft , while achieving maximum power-to-weight ratio and efficiency. The first goal was achieved by using carbon fiber, a specially designed "stuffing" and by getting rid of all that is superfluous. For example, the cockpit did not have a heating system, so Borshberg had to use a special thermal suit.

The main, for the same reason, was the issue of obtaining, accumulating and optimally using solar energy. At a typical noon, each square meter of the earth's surface receives about a thousand watts, or 1.3 "horsepower of heat." 200 square meters of solar cells with 12% efficiency generate about 6 kilowatts of energy. Is it a lot? Let's just say that about the same amount was at the disposal of the legendary Wright brothers in 1903.

Pa surface of the wing SOLAR PLANE more than 12 thousand cells were mounted. Their efficiency could be higher - at the level of those panels that are installed on the ISS. But more efficient cells carry more weight. In weightlessness, this does not play a role (rather, when lifting energy farms into orbit with the help of space "trucks"). However SOLAR PLANE Picard had to continue flying at night, using the energy stored in the batteries. And here every extra kilogram played a critical role. It was the photocells that turned out to be the heaviest component of the machine (100 kilograms, or about a quarter of the weight of the aircraft), so optimizing this ratio was the most difficult task for the engineering team.

Finally, on SOLAR PLANE installed a unique onboard computer system, which evaluates all flight parameters and provides necessary information pilot and ground crew. In total, engineers SolarImpulse during the project implementation, about 60 new technological solutions in the field of materials and solar energy were created.

In 2010, the first and very successful test flights began, and already in July, Andre Borschberg made his historic round-the-clock flight.

“By morning, the batteries still had about 10 percent of the charge,” Borshberg said, inspired. “This is a wonderful and completely unexpected result for us. Our plane is about the size of an airliner and weighs like a car, but consumes no more energy than a moped. This is the beginning of a new era, and not only in the aviation industry. We have shown the potential of renewable energy: if we can fly it, then we can do many other things. With the help of new technologies, we can afford to maintain our usual standard of living, but consume much less energy. After all, so far we are too dependent on engines internal combustion and resource prices!

HB-SIA- technical details of the prototype

• Flight altitude - 8 500 m
• Maximum weight - 1,600 kg
• Cruise speed - 70 km / h
• Minimum speed - 35 km / h
• Wingspan - 63.4 m
• Wing area - 200 sq.m
• Length - 21.85 m
• Height - 6.4 m
• Power power plant— 4×7.35 kW
• The diameter of the propellers of the power plant is 3.5 m
• Batteries weight - 400 kg
• Efficiency of solar panels (11,628 monocrystals) - 22.5%

Does it solar aviation future? Of course, promises Borshberg. In 1903, the Wright brothers were convinced that it was impossible to cross the Atlantic by plane. And 25 years later, Charles Lindbergh managed to fly from New York to Paris. It took the same number of years to create the first 100-seat airliner. The Picard and Borschberg team is only at the beginning of the journey, the maximum speed of the working prototype is no more than 70 kilometers per hour. But the first step has already been taken.

However, in SolarImpulse already know what will happen next. In 2012-2013 the prototype SOLAR PLANE HB-SIB with updated equipment and constant pressure in the cockpit should make the first round-the-world trip on the "solar wing". The span of the bearing surface will be about 80 meters - more than any modern airliner. It is expected that the flight will take place at an altitude of 12 kilometers. True, it will not be continuous. A crew change of two pilots would require five landings. After all, the flight at a still low linear speed will take more than three to four days.

Be that as it may, Picard's project inspires optimism. Perhaps in a couple of decades, airlines will finally stop repeating the sacramental mantra that “oil will run out” soon. Will it run out? So that's great. We will fly not on kerosene, but on solar energy!

And I’ll still remind you about, and also find out what cubes it was made up of The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

Source: https://www.kp.ru/daily/26676/3699473/

Today you will not surprise anyone with solar-powered devices. However, the first test flight of a stratospheric Solar Stratos aircraft on solar energy, which took place on May 5, can be called a significant event.

How is this Swiss SolarStratos different from its fellow solar glider, famous for circumnavigating the globe in 16 years, you ask? Or from a solar-powered apparatus Fedor Konyukhov, who intends to fly around the Earth on it without landing in 120 hours?

The difference is that SolarStratos is designed for higher altitude. If Fedor Konyukhov plans to climb 16 kilometers up, then the Swiss stratospheric aircraft is designed to fly at an altitude of 25 kilometers and above. Weightlessness is not there yet, but experts call these layers of the stratosphere already near space. The development of this area is considered very promising direction. The fact is that here you can launch atmospheric communication satellites, which are several times cheaper than space satellites. Or observation satellites, they will not only save money, but also provide more accurate information. After all, from a height of 20-30 kilometers it is possible to more accurately determine, for example, the boundaries of a forest fire than from near-Earth orbit (over 160 km).

By the way, not so long ago, Russia began testing the atmospheric solar-powered satellite Sova. But this is a small drone weighing 12 kilograms and with a wingspan of 9 meters.

And SolarStratos is the world's first full-fledged two-seat stratospheric aircraft. It weighs 450 kilograms, has a fuselage length of 8.5 meters and a wingspan of 25 meters. Moreover, 22 square meters of the surface is occupied by solar panels.

In the spring, the Swiss Federal Aviation Administration granted SolarStratos project manager Rafael Domyan permission to conduct flight tests. And in early May, the miracle plane made its first flight. During a short 7-minute flight, test pilot Damian Hischier raised the device to a modest height of 300 meters. The plane will begin to rise into the stratosphere when the designers are convinced that the device works perfectly.

The problem is that the pilot has no right to make a mistake: in order to make the aircraft as light as possible, the engineers did not equip the cockpit with systems to maintain normal pressure and temperature. To survive at a temperature of minus 56 degrees and atmospheric pressure tens and hundreds of times lower than on the surface of the Earth, both pilots put on spacesuits. What is interesting: among the different options, the Swiss chose the Russian Sokol spacesuit, it is not designed for spacewalks, but it allows you to withstand the conditions of interstellar space. The only negative is the impossibility of using a parachute in case of an emergency. Therefore, increased requirements are imposed on the safety of a stratospheric aircraft.

We are very pleased that we can demonstrate a working technology that allows us to achieve more than fossil fuel vehicles,” said Rafael Domyan. Electric and solar cars will replace internal combustion engines from the market in the 21st century. And our planes can fly at an altitude of 25,000 meters, and this opens the door to the possibilities of commercial electric and solar aviation in near space.

Domyan hopes that flights to the stratosphere can be sold to tourists.

TTX SolarStratos

• Length - 8.5 meters
• Wingspan - 24.9 meters
• Weight - 450 kilograms
• Autonomy margin - more than 24 hours
• Drive - 4-bladed propeller, diameter - 2.2 meters
• Motor - electric power 32kw,
• Motor efficiency - 90%
• Number of pilots - 2
• Power - solar energy
• Solar battery area - 22 square meters

The American company Titan Aerospace has demonstrated a prototype of its solar-powered UAV, which, according to the manufacturer, will be able to stay in the air for up to 5 years. This device will cruise at an altitude of about 20 thousand meters and take photographs of the surface or act as an atmospheric satellite. Developers from Titan Aerospace are ready to launch their first aircraft in the air as early as 2014. It is worth noting that their concept may have a promising future.

Traditional space satellites are doing their job quite well today, but they have a number of drawbacks. For example, the satellites themselves are quite expensive, their launch into orbit also costs a considerable amount of money, and besides, they cannot be returned back if they have already been put into operation. But the American company Titan Aerospace is coming up with an alternative to space satellites that will be rid of all these problems. The unmanned high-altitude aerial vehicle called "Solara" is designed to work as an "atmospheric satellite" - that is, to perform autonomous flights in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere for a sufficiently long time.

The company is currently working on two Solara drone models. The first of them Solara 50 has a wingspan of 50 meters, its length is 15.5 meters, weight - 159 kg, payload - up to 32 kg. The more massive Solara 60 has a wingspan of 60 meters and can carry up to 100 kg. payload. The tail of the apparatus and the upper wings are covered with 3,000 solar cells, which allow generating up to 7 kWh of energy during the day. At its cruising altitude of 20,000 meters, the atmospheric satellite will be above cloud level, which means it will not be affected by weather factors. The collected energy will be stored in onboard lithium-ion batteries to power the engine, autopilot, telemetry systems and sensors at night. It is assumed that the atmospheric satellite will be able to operate completely autonomously, being in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere for up to 5 years, and then return to the ground, so that its payload can be returned, and the device itself can be disassembled into spare parts.

It is reported that the cruising speed of the unmanned vehicle will be about 100 km / h, and the operational radius will be more than 4.5 million kilometers. According to experts, the drone for the most part will fly in circles over a certain area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe earth's surface. Such applications include object tracking, surveillance, real-time mapping, as well as monitoring of weather, crops, forests, accident sites, and in general almost any task that an ordinary low-altitude satellite can handle.

On top of that, Titan Aerospace experts say that each drone will be able to provide cellular coverage of 17,000 square kilometers of the earth's surface at once, communicating with more than 100 ground towers. At present, the Americans have already tested smaller models of atmospheric satellites and hope to release full-size versions of the Solara 50 and 60 vehicles later in 2013.

By preliminary estimates According to experts, multispectral imaging of the earth's surface using Solara devices will cost only $5 per square kilometer, which is immediately 7 times lower than the prices for satellite data of comparable quality. In addition, such drones will be able to provide communication services to an area within a radius of 30 km, which is quite comparable to a modern metropolis like London or Moscow with most of their suburbs. IN normal conditions there is no need for such a system on the territory of megacities yet, but the company believes that their drones can be useful either in case of emergency or in underdeveloped countries. Titan Aerospace says that their unmanned aerial vehicles Solara has already become interested in the well-known computer corporation Google, which can use them as part of own project internet africa.

To date, two things have solidified Solara as an atmospheric satellite. The first is the height of its flight. The device is designed to fly at an altitude of more than 20,000 meters, which allows it to be located almost above all possible atmospheric phenomena. The device hovers over clouds and various weather conditions, where environment and the wind tends to be quite stable, or at least very predictable. Being at such a height, about 45,000 square kilometers of the earth's surface immediately fall into the field of view of the drone. So the base station cellular communication, installed on Solara, could replace 100 such stations on the Earth's surface.

The second very important thing is that the device is powered by solar energy. All accessible surfaces on the wings and tail of the drone are covered with special solar panels, and lithium-ion batteries are mounted in the wings. During the day, Solara is able to generate an impressive amount of energy, which is quite enough to leave a charge in the batteries that would be enough for the rest of the night. Since the solar-powered drone does not need to be refueled, it can stay in the air for up to 5 years. At this time, it can either circle over one place, or (if you want the device to make long-distance flights) be able to fly a distance of about 4,500,000 kilometers at a cruising speed of just under 60 knots (about 111 km / h). At the same time, the five-year flight period of the device is due only to the life cycle of some of its components, so there are all prerequisites for this drone to be in the sky for much longer.

Information sources:
-http://gearmix.ru/archives/4918
-http://aenergy.ru/4126
-http://lenta.ru/news/2013/08/19/solar
-http://nauka21vek.ru/archives/52274

Real planes that are powered by solar panels already exist. Is it possible to make with your own hands the same, or at least close to reality, analogue, that is, a model of a solar-powered aircraft that would be completely autonomous and would not need to be recharged from the network or change batteries. That is, so that it is a small “flying” one.

A master advanced in this direction, creating a moving model of a solar-powered aircraft, which, unfortunately, is only able to fly conditionally, being suspended on a No thread, and this solution is of some interest to designers of toy aircraft.

The author made this plane for his son, deciding to equip his homemade flying device with solar panels and a small motor. A low-power country lamp, or rather, its filling, was used as an electricity generator. Two such panels were put on the airplane. The engine was also inside this lamp, which imitated the fluttering of a butterfly's wings. This lamp worked only during the day, for a long charge, given the large load in the form of an engine, it was not suitable.

In the aircraft model, the motor from the lamp is used to rotate the propeller. Thanks to the fact that two solar panels were supplied, even the light of a 40-watt table lamp allows the propeller to rotate, which is quite large for the size of the aircraft. As shown in the video, the motor successfully drives this screw when held close to the light bulb. When approaching it, the screw starts to move and, accordingly, when removed, it stops.

The fishing line, to which the airplane is tied, does not allow it to fall off, this “aircraft” will not be able to really fly. For gaming and decorative purposes, such a bunch is quite good. Unlike static models, such a device has dynamics, arouses interest, and has some energy aura. It is especially pleasant that the plane moves completely autonomously, there is no need to refuel it at least somehow. Naturally, it will only work during the daytime. He flies especially actively on the balcony, where there is a lot of sun. Probably, for plants that grow on the balcony in pots, the ventilation that this aircraft creates is useful.

Airplane on solar panels

The summer of 2010 will go down in aviation history forever. First manned solar powered aircraft made a non-stop flight lasting more than a day. Unique prototype SOLAR PLANE HB-SIA is the brainchild of a Swiss company SolarImpulse and its permanent president, Bertrand Picard.

In his message posted on the company's website after successful tests aircraft , Picard noted: “Until this day, we could not really count on anyone's trust. Now we can really show the entire political and economic world that this technology works.”

In the early morning of July 7, thanks to the energy generated by 12,000 solar cells, installed on a wing with a length of more than 64 meters (quite comparable to the dimensions of the Airbus A340 airliner), an unusual-looking single-seat aircraft weighing one and a half tons took off from the airfield in Payerne (Switzerland). One of the founders sat at the helm Solar Impulse, 57-year-old Swiss pilot and businessman Andre Borschberg.

“It was the most amazing flight of my life,” he remarked after landing. - I just sat and watched the battery level rise with each hour, and wondered if there was enough capacity for the whole night. And as a result, 26 hours flew by without a single drop of fuel and any environmental pollution!”

Solar Impulse- Not first solar powered aircraft, built by man, but the first to cross the border between day and night with a pilot on board.

Models SOLAR PLANES began to appear in the 1970s with the introduction of the first affordable photovoltaic cells to the market, and manned flights began in the 80s. An American team led by Paul McCready created a 2.5kW Solar Challenger aircraft that achieved impressive hours of flight. In 1981, he managed to cross the English Channel. And in Europe, Günther Rochelt from Germany took to the skies on his own model Solair 1, equipped with two and a half thousand cells with a total power of about 2.2 kW.

In 1990, American Eric Raymond crossed the United States in his Sunseeker. However, the journey with twenty stops took more than two months (121 hours of flight), and the longest segment was about 400 kilometers. Weighed model aircraft only 89 kilograms and was equipped with silicon solar panels.

In the mid-90s, several such aircraft took part in the Berblinger competition at once: they were faced with the task of reaching a height of 450 meters and holding out on solar energy of the order of 500 watts per square meter of wing. The prize in 1996 went to the model of Prof. Wojta-Nietzschmann from the University of Stuttgart, whose Icare II had a 25-meter energy wing with an area of ​​26 square meters. meters.

In 2001, AeroVironment's Helios solar drone, designed specifically for NASA and with a wingspan of more than 70 meters, managed to reach a height of more than 30 kilometers. Two years later, he got into a turbulence zone and disappeared somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

In 2005, a small drone with a wingspan of about 5 meters by Alan Cocconi and his company AC Propulsion for the first time successfully completed a flight lasting more than 48 hours. Due to the energy accumulated during the daytime, aircraft was capable of night flight. Finally, in 2007-2008, the Anglo-American company QuinetiQ carried out successful flights of its aircraft Zephyr lasting 54 and 83 hours. The car weighed about 27 kg, the wingspan was 12 m, and the flight altitude exceeded 18 km.

Project solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse would hardly have been able to get out of the diaper of drawings and sketches, if not for the energy of the tireless Bertrand Picard - a doctor, traveler, businessman and record-breaking aviator. However, genes also seem to have helped.

The grandfather of the innovator, Auguste Picard, is a famous physicist, a friend of Einstein and Marie Curie, one of the pioneers of aviation and underwater affairs, the inventor of the first deep-sea apparatus and stratospheric balloon. Overcoming a 15-kilometer height in a balloon in the early 30s, he became the first person in the world to see with his own eyes the curvature of the surface of the globe.

Then Auguste was pulled down, and the inventor built a deep-sea apparatus, which he called the bathyscaphe. After several joint dives, his son Jacques Picard became so interested in exploring the mysteries of the oceans that he became one of the pioneers who visited the bottom of the Mariana Trench (depth 11 km.). Then, taking the work of his father as a basis, Jacques built the world's first submarine for tourists, as well as a mesoscaphe for exploring the Gulf Stream.

Thanks to his father, Bertrand Picard, who was born in 1958, as a child had a unique opportunity to personally meet outstanding people who largely determined his future: the famous Swiss rescue pilot Hermann Geiger, with whom he made the first flight over the Alps, record-breaking diver Jacques Maillol , who taught him to dive in Florida, one of the pillars of world astronautics, Wernher von Braun, who introduced him to astronauts and NASA employees.

At the age of 16, returning from Florida after another practical course in deep diving, Bertrand made his first air trip, discovering a hang glider. Is it any wonder that it was he who soon became one of the pioneers of this sport in Europe. Years later, Picard not only became the founder of the Swiss Hang Gliding Federation and a professional instructor, but also tried everything possible: aerial acrobatics, balloon launches, parachuting. Several times, Picard became the European champion in this sport, and finally, he was the first to fly over the Swiss-Italian Alps on a trike.

Unnoticed "air" hobby became for him also a professional laboratory. Interested in the behavior of people in extreme situations, Picard entered the department of psychiatry and a few years later received a doctorate in psychotherapy from the Medical Faculty of the University of Lausanne, after which he opened his own practice. The subject of particular interest for Bertrand was the technique of medical hypnosis: he received the missing knowledge both at the universities of Europe and the USA, and from the followers of Taoism in Southeast Asia.

It was this interest that brought Picard back to the sky. In 1992, Chrysler hosted the first ever transatlantic hot air balloon race, dubbed the Chrysler Challenge. The Belgian aviator Wim Vershtraten invited Picard as a co-pilot - he was sure that having a psychotherapist on board who knew the practice of hypnosis could be a good advantage over the rest of the teams. And so it happened. The crew of Verstraten and Picard easily passed the marathon and won the historic race, landing in Spain after a five-day flight of five thousand kilometers.

For Picard, flying was not just a revelation, but also a new way of interacting with nature. After 18 years of flying on a hang glider, he had a new dream - to fly around the world without a motor and rudder, relying on the will of the wind.

And the dream came true. Even if not on the first try. The sponsors were the Swiss watch manufacturer Breitling and the International Olympic Committee. On January 12, 1997, after three years of preparation, a balloon called the Breitling Orbiter took off from an airfield in Switzerland, but due to technical problems, it landed after six hours. The Breitling Orbiter 2 took off in February 1998 but again failed to reach its destination. This time the stop took place in Burma, after the Chinese authorities denied Picard an air corridor. This flight was the longest balloon trip in history (over nine days), but the goal was still not reached.

Finally, the third balloon left Switzerland in March 1999 and landed in Egypt after a continuous flight of almost 20 days and more than 45,000 kilometers. With his unprecedented journey, Picard broke seven world records, earned several honorary scientific titles and entered encyclopedias along with his famous father and grandfather.

The Breitling Orbiter 3 is housed at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in the US, and Bertrand Piccard has written several books and has been a welcome guest at numerous lectures and seminars.

In 2003, the indefatigable Picard announced a new, even more ambitious undertaking, undertaking the creation of a manned solar powered aircraft capable of circumnavigating the entire globe. This is how the project came about SolarImpulse.

Picard's partner and indispensable CEO of the company was the Swiss pilot and businessman Andre Borschberg. He was born in Zurich, graduated in engineering from the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Lausanne (EPFL), received a degree in management from the legendary Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has since accumulated vast experience as a founder and manager of a wide variety of business projects. In addition, from an early age, Andre was fond of aviation - he studied at the Swiss Air Force School and received more than a dozen licenses giving the right to professionally fly aircraft and helicopters of all conceivable categories.

Borshberg worked for five years at McKinsey, one of the largest consulting companies in the world, after which he founded his own venture capital fund, launched two high-tech companies and created a charitable foundation.

In 2003, in Lausanne, Picard and Borschberg conducted preliminary studies that confirmed the fundamental engineering feasibility of realizing Picard's concept. Calculations confirmed that to create aircraft on solar panels theoretically possible. In November 2003, the project was officially launched and prototype development began.

Since 2005, the Royal Institute of Meteorology in Brussels has been simulating trial virtual flights of a model aircraft in real conditions at Geneva and Zurich airports. The main task was to calculate the optimal route, because for a long time to be under the clouds covering the sun, SOLAR PLANE could not. And finally, in 2007, the production of the aircraft began.

In 2009, the firstborn HB-SIA was ready for test flights. In the process of creating the design, the engineers faced two main tasks. Should have kept the weight down aircraft , while achieving maximum power-to-weight ratio and efficiency. The first goal was achieved through the use of carbon fiber, a specially designed "stuffing" and by getting rid of everything superfluous. For example, the cockpit did not have a heating system, so Borshberg had to use a special thermal suit.

The main, for the same reason, was the issue of obtaining, accumulating and optimally using solar energy. At a typical noon, each square meter of the earth's surface receives about a thousand watts, or 1.3 "horsepower of heat." 200 square meters of solar cells with 12% efficiency generate about 6 kilowatts of energy. Is it a lot? Let's just say that about the same amount was at the disposal of the legendary Wright brothers in 1903.

Pa surface of the wing SOLAR PLANE more than 12 thousand cells were mounted. Their efficiency could be even higher - at the level of those panels that are installed on the ISS. But more efficient cells carry more weight. In weightlessness, this does not play a role (rather, when lifting energy farms into orbit with the help of space "trucks"). However SOLAR PLANE Picard had to continue flying at night, using the energy stored in the batteries. And here every extra kilogram played a critical role. It was the photocells that turned out to be the heaviest component of the machine (100 kilograms, or about a quarter of the weight of the aircraft), so optimizing this ratio was the most difficult task for the engineering team.

Finally, on SOLAR PLANE installed a unique on-board computer system that evaluates all flight parameters and provides the necessary information to the pilot, as well as the ground crew. In total, engineers SolarImpulse during the project implementation, about 60 new technological solutions in the field of materials and solar energy were created.

In 2010, the first and very successful test flights began, and already in July, Andre Borschberg made his historic round-the-clock flight.

“By morning, the batteries still had about 10 percent of the charge,” Borshberg said, inspired. - This is a wonderful and completely unexpected result for us. Our plane is about the size of an airliner and weighs like a car, but consumes no more energy than a moped. This is the beginning of a new era, and not only in the aviation industry. We have shown the potential of renewable energy: if we can fly it, then we can do many other things. With the help of new technologies, we can afford to maintain our usual standard of living, but consume much less energy. For now, we are too dependent on internal combustion engines and resource prices!”

HB-SIA– technical data of the prototype

• Flight altitude - 8 500 m
• The largest weight - 1,600 kg
• Cruise speed - 70 km/h
• Minimum speed - 35 km/h
• Wingspan - 63.4 m
• Wing area - 200 sq.m
• Length - 21.85 m
• Height - 6.4 m
• Power plant power - 4 × 7.35 kW
• The diameter of the screws of the power plant - 3.5 m
• Batteries weight - 400 kg
• Efficiency of solar panels (11,628 monocrystals) - 22.5%

Does it solar aviation future? Of course, promises Borshberg. In 1903, the Wright brothers were convinced that it was impossible to cross the Atlantic by plane. And 25 years later, Charles Lindbergh managed to fly from New York to Paris. It took the same number of years to create the first 100-seat airliner. The Picard and Borschberg team is only at the beginning of the journey, the maximum speed of the working prototype is no more than 70 kilometers per hour. But the first step has already been taken.

However, in SolarImpulse already know what will happen next. In 2012-2013 the prototype SOLAR PLANE HB-SIB with updated equipment and constant pressure in the cockpit should make the first round-the-world trip on the "solar wing". The span of the bearing surface will be about 80 meters - more than any modern airliner. It is expected that the flight will take place at an altitude of 12 kilometers. True, it will not be continuous. A crew change of two pilots would require five landings. After all, the flight at a still low linear speed will take more than three to four days.

Be that as it may, Picard's project inspires optimism. Perhaps in a couple of decades, airlines will finally stop repeating the sacramental mantra that “oil will run out” soon. Will it run out? So that's great. We will fly not on kerosene, but on solar energy!