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Solar-powered plane crossing Pacific: Live telemetry

94 points by willyt 11y ago

rgbrenner 11y ago
Even more impressed after I saw it's carrying a pilot + batteries to continue flying through the night.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Well what's more impressive is that this is a 1 week non-stop leg. This is about 7 times longer than any previous flight they've attempted.
  - rgbrenner 11y ago
    That is impressive -- 1 week would make it the 2nd longest flight endurance in history (for a manned, non-refueled airplane): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_endurance_record http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_endurance_record
    - jccooper 11y ago
      Is it really non-refueled? Solar probably needs to be its own category. The refueled endurance record is crazy. 65 days in a Cessna, refueling from a pickup truck.
      - pepijndevos 11y ago
        An article about the flight: http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2008/March/1/Endurance-Test-Circa-1958 http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2008/March/1/End...
        rgbrenner 11y ago
        picture: https://rollandjennison.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/endurance-test.jpg https://rollandjennison.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/enduranc...
joeyspn 11y ago
> Solar-powered plane crossing Pacific Looks like they're actually attempting a trip around the world...
dogma1138 11y ago
This is now the longest and most dangerous leg in their flight over 9000 KM and over the pacific.
mapmap 11y ago
What's the explanation for that large directional spike in the Sea of Japan and also the 14k ft altitude spike?
- dogma1138 11y ago
  ALIENS! Well according to the cockpit chatter they had issues with their GPS.
- AReallyGoodName 11y ago
  The altitude increase coincides with the batteries reaching 99% capacity. The decrease coincides with nighttime and the batteries draining. In other words it's another form of energy storage.
anarcat 11y ago
why is it going west now? update: there's a bad weather front on the way to Hawai, so the pilot is holding his position.
discordance 11y ago
If only Malaysian airlines (and all the others) had this! It's clearly possible. Why don't they?
machbio 11y ago
The flight was from Nanjing to Hawai.. Still to cross the entire Pacific Ocean, not being pessimistic but the title is misinformation..
nshepperd 11y ago
Site apparently does not work in firefox...
netcan 11y ago
I was talking to a friend recently about technology and its progression on a 10-100 year scale, someone who isn't as used to this class of thought experiment as the average HNer but has a background in math & physics. Anyway, the upshot was that there are a few things to really keep your eye on, known unknowns more or less. One is any process with a long term trend of improvement, like GDP growth, computation growth and anything that seems to be following such a trend. Another is energy sources. It used to be popular to think of technological progress as a history of energy sources. Human power followed by beasts of burden for agriculture and transport. Charcoal for smelting followed by coal. The old wind and water powered mills followed by the coal fired mills, steam engines etc. Oil, combustion engines. Each energy source enabled a sort of technological revolution. I think this model of tech-history was at its giddiest when nuclear seemed to hold more promise (the 50s?). Nuclear Power, the space age energy. Any feats of energy sources are worth keeping an eye on.
- contingencies 11y ago
  Efficient energy storage for renewables is an area that may provide sudden and significant change. One recent project based on flexible flywheels with digital dampening seems interesting: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340066560/velkess-energy-storage https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340066560/velkess-ener... I spent the rest of the spring designing and developing this new damping approach. Basically it amounts to a very sensitive array of sensors that are all hooked into a computer which is able to watch the data streams in real time to diagnose these phenomena. The computer is then able to apply precisely timed forces to the apparatus at key locations to get rid of these vibrations. I got the idea by reading an article on identifying and eliminating the vibrations that happen in the beams of big particle accelerators like CERN and the Large Hadron Collider. Now entering commercial production as http://www.velkess.com/VelkessLDatasheet.pdf http://www.velkess.com/VelkessLDatasheet.pdf and http://www.velkess.com/VelkessADatasheet.pdf http://www.velkess.com/VelkessADatasheet.pdf
  - netcan 11y ago
    Cool. Energy storage certainly counts. It's a nicely left of field concept, as a bottleneck remover. If energy storage can get onto a rapid improvement path, all sorts of options might suddenly be feasible. But I have to say that the idea of a flywheel storing enough energy to power a house sounds scary, never mind anything bigger. What happens if the stabilisation fails somehow?
pepijndevos 11y ago
The telemetry doen't seem to work, not in any browser I tried at least. I'd love to see all the instruments during the scheduled 14:00 UTC landing.
- pepijndevos 11y ago
  Telemetry is back up. Yay.

94 points by willyt 11y ago

rgbrenner 11y ago

Even more impressed after I saw it's carrying a pilot + batteries to continue flying through the night.

dogma1138 11y ago
Well what's more impressive is that this is a 1 week non-stop leg. This is about 7 times longer than any previous flight they've attempted.
- rgbrenner 11y ago
  That is impressive -- 1 week would make it the 2nd longest flight endurance in history (for a manned, non-refueled airplane): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_endurance_record http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_endurance_record
  - jccooper 11y ago
    Is it really non-refueled? Solar probably needs to be its own category. The refueled endurance record is crazy. 65 days in a Cessna, refueling from a pickup truck.
    - pepijndevos 11y ago
      An article about the flight: http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2008/March/1/Endurance-Test-Circa-1958 http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2008/March/1/End...
      - rgbrenner 11y ago
        picture: https://rollandjennison.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/endurance-test.jpg https://rollandjennison.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/enduranc...

joeyspn 11y ago

> Solar-powered plane crossing Pacific Looks like they're actually attempting a trip around the world...

dogma1138 11y ago

This is now the longest and most dangerous leg in their flight over 9000 KM and over the pacific.

mapmap 11y ago

What's the explanation for that large directional spike in the Sea of Japan and also the 14k ft altitude spike?

dogma1138 11y ago
ALIENS! Well according to the cockpit chatter they had issues with their GPS.
AReallyGoodName 11y ago
The altitude increase coincides with the batteries reaching 99% capacity. The decrease coincides with nighttime and the batteries draining. In other words it's another form of energy storage.

anarcat 11y ago

why is it going west now? update: there's a bad weather front on the way to Hawai, so the pilot is holding his position.

discordance 11y ago

If only Malaysian airlines (and all the others) had this! It's clearly possible. Why don't they?

machbio 11y ago

The flight was from Nanjing to Hawai.. Still to cross the entire Pacific Ocean, not being pessimistic but the title is misinformation..

nshepperd 11y ago

Site apparently does not work in firefox...

netcan 11y ago

I was talking to a friend recently about technology and its progression on a 10-100 year scale, someone who isn't as used to this class of thought experiment as the average HNer but has a background in math & physics. Anyway, the upshot was that there are a few things to really keep your eye on, known unknowns more or less. One is any process with a long term trend of improvement, like GDP growth, computation growth and anything that seems to be following such a trend. Another is energy sources. It used to be popular to think of technological progress as a history of energy sources. Human power followed by beasts of burden for agriculture and transport. Charcoal for smelting followed by coal. The old wind and water powered mills followed by the coal fired mills, steam engines etc. Oil, combustion engines. Each energy source enabled a sort of technological revolution. I think this model of tech-history was at its giddiest when nuclear seemed to hold more promise (the 50s?). Nuclear Power, the space age energy. Any feats of energy sources are worth keeping an eye on.

contingencies 11y ago
Efficient energy storage for renewables is an area that may provide sudden and significant change. One recent project based on flexible flywheels with digital dampening seems interesting: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340066560/velkess-energy-storage https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340066560/velkess-ener... I spent the rest of the spring designing and developing this new damping approach. Basically it amounts to a very sensitive array of sensors that are all hooked into a computer which is able to watch the data streams in real time to diagnose these phenomena. The computer is then able to apply precisely timed forces to the apparatus at key locations to get rid of these vibrations. I got the idea by reading an article on identifying and eliminating the vibrations that happen in the beams of big particle accelerators like CERN and the Large Hadron Collider. Now entering commercial production as http://www.velkess.com/VelkessLDatasheet.pdf http://www.velkess.com/VelkessLDatasheet.pdf and http://www.velkess.com/VelkessADatasheet.pdf http://www.velkess.com/VelkessADatasheet.pdf
- netcan 11y ago
  Cool. Energy storage certainly counts. It's a nicely left of field concept, as a bottleneck remover. If energy storage can get onto a rapid improvement path, all sorts of options might suddenly be feasible. But I have to say that the idea of a flywheel storing enough energy to power a house sounds scary, never mind anything bigger. What happens if the stabilisation fails somehow?

pepijndevos 11y ago

The telemetry doen't seem to work, not in any browser I tried at least. I'd love to see all the instruments during the scheduled 14:00 UTC landing.

pepijndevos 11y ago
Telemetry is back up. Yay.