Solar Impulse - Wings Construction

"Wow, that's really big!" - The wing of the prototype is being built
Is it really possible to imagine dimensions such as these? An airplane with the wingspan of an airbus but the weight of a small car? 61 metres and 1500 kg - that's what the construction plan for the Solar Impulse prototype HB-SIA, currently being built in Dübendorf, says. But you don't get a proper impression of the dimensions until you are face to face with one of these modules for the wing - a twenty-metre component of which two span the entire length of the dockyard, and it's a big dockyard at that! It is almost inconceivable that the carbon fibre sheets used to construct the wing are less than half a millimetre thick and that they are still supposed to be stable. "Is the calculation of size, weight and durability crazy? Possibly!" says Bertrand Piccard. It is, by any reckoning, hard to grasp that the two pilots will soon be taking off in this construction.

The new "Solar Impulse Insights" video clip is all about the building and assembly of the parts for the prototype's wing in the Décision dockyard. Take a look and get an impression of these huge dimensions for yourself!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• solarimpulse
• hbsia
• hbsib
• symbol
• airplane
• solar
• energy
• world
• zero
• emission
• piccard
• betrand
• Flight
• Envelope
• Test

[JaycubL]

@mrfunsocks777 Make a video of it!

[wapsyed]

1:32 PLAY IT'S SO....

[mrfrankincense]

reducing weight isn't very neccessary, you can have less drag inducing wings with it but it's not paramount

[mrfunsocks777]

I made a remote control model using this design and it works like a charm. Great design.

[EUROSUN1]

Beautiful. Very impressive.