Solar Impulse - Flea Hop

The drone of the engines gets louder. In the cockpit test pilot Markus Scherdel gives the thumbs-up sign. Both the pilot and the plane are ready. The prototype slowly starts to move. The air is clear and the snow-covered Alps rise majestically beyond the runway. Scherdel accelerates until he reaches take-off speed. And then the moment the Solar Impulse team has been working towards for the last few months: HB-SIA lifts from the runway and flies a metre above the ground for a distance of about 350 metres. Now were ready for the next phase: the solar flight tests, announces André Borschberg. Keep tuned!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• solarimpulse
• hbsia
• hbsib
• symbol
• airplane
• solar
• energy
• world
• zero
• emission
• Flea
• Hop

[lukeo25]

but we have already had a solar flight. Whats the significance?

[SolarImpulseChannel]

Solar Impulse will fly around the world while performing multiple day and night cycles. It also will be steered by one or two pilots.

[isocrate27]

Bravo M. Piccard.

[dickylobster]

Holy Orvil ! It flys !!! Many Kudos to you.

[ThermalHD]

How much power do the engine do?

[orthografe]

This is the old one! The actual can flight all the night long! :D

[calvin588]

Expectacular sigan adelante excelente proyecto.

[zx6rtt]

amazing

imagine what we'll be able to accomplish with better batteries

[625pal]

Nice smooth take-off, where was the "hop"? I was expecting the nose wheel to thrust down suddenly.

Clearly this is wrong.

[lsf665]

Fantastic!!!

[isikorsky]

Nice, but a flight test and no video of Christoph. :-(