Solar Impulse

[Molyned]

Nice to see that the solar powered aircraft Solar Impulse is back in the skies after its winter rest. It's now slowly winging its way across the Pacific from Hawaii to San Francisco.
Here's the link to the site - http://www.solarimpulse.com/widget-instruments.
Cheers
Dave M(oly)

[Kevin Farnell]

Cheers for that, Dave.

Have to say that I love the virtual cockpit. If however I saw a IAS = 27 KTS, I think I'd be calling the drycleaners .

Kevin

[petermcleland]

I love the Drift angle...quite challenging to navigate with that...plus the fact that it would be very normal to find yourself going backwards!

[Archer]

Anyone else following the Atlantic flight? In several hours Bertrand Piccard will have equalled Lindbergh's time but he won't be anywhere near Paris yet...
http://www.solarimpulse.com/rtw

[emfrat]

Solar Impulse is a brilliant achievement, and in years to come will be ranked alongside the Voyager I and II successes.
MikeW

[Nigel H-J]

Well unfortunately nothing is showing from that link, all I got was:

To enjoy the full experience you need to update your browser Lincolnshire County Council obviously do not want their library computers updating as I am still unable to upload to YouTube!!

plus the fact that it would be very normal to find yourself going backwards!

Coming off the subject of Solar Impulse when I was gliding we had one day where the winds were right on the maximum for flying but we persevered regardless!! I was flying the K8 and the launch was brilliant even though I had to shake off speed a couple of times (If speed became too fast on the launch you would yaw the glider a couple of times as a signal to the winch to reduce power). My launch height was on release 1500ft and after clearing the launch and flying into wind at 50kts my ground speed was low so decided to drop my airspeed down to 40kts (which was the usual flying speed for the K8) and remained stationary so I then decided 'lets raise the nose a bit' and allowed my speed to drop to 37kts whereas I started flying slowly backwards towards the launch point. The CFI at that time was Dave Coburn, was not amused at my antics and I was lucky to get away with having to buy him a couple of drinks in the club bar at the end of flying.

Regards
Nigel.

[cstorey]

In my 1974-1981 Tipsy Nipper days ( G-AWDA) if there was a good strong westerly flow I used to enjoy flying it backwards over Snowdon at about 5000'. The wind was often 60 kts or so there at that altitude, and since the Nipper had a stall speed of 32mph and flew beautifully power on at 50 mph one could go backwards at about 15 mph without any difficulty !

Just to go back to the thread, Solar Impulse landed at 0538 after 2 days 23 hours - what a great achievement !

[dodger]

Congratulations to Bertrand Piccard for a great flight.

It has been an interesting few days as we do not get many Aviation first nowadays do we.

Roger.

[Kevin Farnell]

She's done it !

Solar impulse has landed in Abu Dhabi, to become the first aircraft to circle the globe, powered only by sunlight.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36890563

I think a huge round of applause are due to Bertrand Piccard, Andre Borschberg and the entire team.
As Roger says, we don't see many aviation firsts these days.
Hope the team get to enjoy a well earned cold beer or two.

Kevin

[Paul K]

Well done to all involved. As you say Kevin, there's not many aviation 'firsts' left.