First piloted solar

A solar powered aircraft masterminded by a Swiss adventurer has made history as the first manned plane to fly around the clock on the sun's energy, bringing a step closer the dream of perpetual flight.

The aircraft, built by Swiss company Solar Impulse, also broke the records for highest altitude and longest duration for a piloted solar flight.
The craft took off at 6:51 local time yesterday morning from the Payerne airbase in Switzerland.
Its power was collected by 12,000 solar panels built into its 63-metre wingspan. During the hours of bright sun, batteries siphoned off some energy to power the plane through the night.
The craft climbed to a height of 8564 metres, which it reached about ten hours into the flight. When the sun began to fade around 7:30 in the evening, the plane began a slow descent to around 1500 metres, where it stayed from 11 pm until sunrise.
After 26 hours in the plane, Borschberg landed it at 9:00 this morning.
This is the last milestone for Solar Impulse's prototype aircraft. Its first was the "flea hop" of last December: a short flight around one metre from the ground.
The company's dreams for the next plane are bigger. To be constructed in 2011, its objectives are to cross the Atlantic, and then to circumnavigate the globe on solar power alone, by 2013. For such missions, let's hope they consider a more adventurous name for the plane than its current moniker: HB-SIB.
"The flight was really zen. It's very peaceful, during this time you have the time to think and to concentrate," he explained.
Piccard revealed that Solar Impulse had emerged from darkness with three hours of energy left in its batteries, a far bigger margin than expected.
The first prototype, shaped like a giant dragonfly, is clad with solar panels across a wingspan of 63 metres, the size of an Airbus A340 airliner.
The solar cells and nearly half a tonne of batteries provide energy for four small electric motors and propellers - the "power of a scooter", as the crew put it - and weigh little more than a saloon car.
The team is driven by a desire to demonstrate that clean energy is technically feasible and should be developed and used more widely for transport, in the household and at work.