Solar Impulse returns from 24 hour test flight 26 hours later
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted July 8th 2010 8:58PM
posted July 8th 2010 8:58PM
Rest easy, fans of solar-powered aeronautics. Captain Piccard's Solar Impulse has safely returned after 26 hours in the air -- powered by nothing but the sun. The four-engine aircraft, which features 12,000 solar cells arranged on its wingspan, reached a height of almost 29,000 feet before touching down at Payerne Airport near Berne, Switzerland today. The next step? The team is going back to the woodshed, with the hope of developing a plane that will circumnavigate the globe by 2013.
@Obi Wan Kenobi
Use the Sun, Luke!
Congratulations to the whole team and everybody involved in the project!
This is one amazing achievement , that's probably a little bit late for it's time , but still... better late than never.
Let's hope there's going to be a lot more of solar powered planes/cars etc. in the future and the people would start to think more about it. It's just the future , nothing more.
The Swiss press is not very positive about it. They don't get what does solar flying brings to the table... I personally find it innovative, but I would definitively drop the pilot and turn it into a drone.
BTW, the pilot alone cannot fly the bird, because it is too sensitive. Thus all comments are relayed to the ground... To do so they have developed a tiny transponder, which definitively could have a good market value :-)
2013???