http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/ Engadget Comments for Sunseeker II solar-powered plane begins its European tour http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/
fuselage is 7 meters (about 21 feet)

wingspan is 17 meters (about 56 feet)]]>Apr 6th 2009 4:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/
calculations a bit off today]]>Apr 6th 2009 4:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 7th 2009 2:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/
Now in a glider or single seat craft... that's a completely different story.]]>Apr 6th 2009 4:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/
If you could integrate the solar panels to the plane without increasing weight it might be a feasible plan, but as they can't be made into part of the load bearing structure it'll increase weight, and increased weight decreases fuel economy.

If you subtract the fuel from increased weight of the fuelsavings of electricity you'll see that solarpanels on planes aren't a good idea.]]>Apr 6th 2009 5:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 6:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/
lets just say for the sake of argument that a jet produces 100,000lbs of thrust. it only takes maybe 100-200lbs of thrust to spin the generator to make enough power for the entire aircraft, leaving 99,900 lbs to push the plane. i would consider that pretty efficient.]]>Apr 6th 2009 6:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/
You could fly almost indefinitely, i wouldn't want to glide at night, but if that motor could get you up to 15-20,000ft in the day time and you had a nice really really gentle glide down, you might be able to last until daylight.

It's a really awesome concept and personally i'd love to get one instead of a turbo/prop glider (i.e. a self launching plane) =D]]>Apr 6th 2009 5:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 7th 2009 10:21AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/
Doesn't sound like it provides sustained flight either. So basically it's a sailplane that can take off on it's own...


]]>Apr 6th 2009 4:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 5:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 5:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 11:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 4:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 5:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 5:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/
lets just say for the sake of argument that a jet produces 100,000lbs of thrust. it only takes maybe 100-200lbs of thrust to spin the generator to make enough power for the entire aircraft, leaving 99,900 lbs to push the plane. i would consider that pretty efficient.]]>Apr 6th 2009 6:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 6:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 6:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 6th 2009 7:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 7th 2009 1:05AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/the ocean]]>Apr 7th 2009 3:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/sunseeker-ii-solar-powered-plane-begins-its-european-tour/Apr 7th 2009 4:16PM