May 22, 2007 — A dainty solar-powered plane with wings the width of a giant Airbus will retrace exploits in aviation history, including Charles Lindbergh's first ever transatlantic crossing, before a pioneering round-the-world flight in 2011, project leaders said Tuesday.
The "Solar Impulse" project led by Swiss round-the-world balloon pioneer Bertrand Piccard, undertook real-time computer simulations of a circumnavigation this week, a year before a prototype is due to take to the air.
The virtual flights, which can be followed on the Internet, are designed to replicate long-distance journeys through existing, real weather conditions by the high-tech but lightweight and slow-moving aircraft .
The ground crew will try to ensure Solar Impulse has maximum exposure to the sun during the daytime to charge its batteries, but will also guide it around or above turbulence, unfavourable winds and bad weather.
Each of its five legs around the world should last three to five days each.
"We have no idea if the virtual flight will be a success or not. We're dealing with real conditions, so it may be a failure," Piccard said.
"It's a real opportunity to learn," he told journalists at the control centre in Geneva Airport.
The team is adamant that they will try a first non-stop crossing of the United States by a solar powered aircraft and a first transatlantic flight before they launch the keynote circumnavigation of the globe in May 2011.
"My dream is for a flight one day from New York to Paris, this is the most difficult because of the weather," said team meteorologist Luc Trullemans.
"For the first time in my life I'm always looking for sunshine," he added.
The carbon-fibre Solar Impulse will have a wingspan equivalent to that of a 580 ton Airbus A380, and 250 square meters (2,690 square feet) of solar panels.
Yet it will weigh just two tons and will barely fit the lone pilot — Piccard — into its narrow, ultra-computerised, cockpit.
