Sun-powered aircraft
An aircraft powered by the sun and carrying a human pilot has made more than 50 flights in California. The Gossamer Penguin is the successor to the Gossamer Albatross, the pedal-powered craft which crossed the English Channel last year. So far, its flights have not carried it much farther than Richard William Pearse flew his bamboo and tin machine at Waitohi Flat in 1903, but it is the prototype for a larger solar-powered plane, now near completion, which may fly from London to Paris later this year. The improbably fragile
Gossamers are the creations of Paul MacCready, aeronautical engineer of Pasadena, California. He sees little practical application for the aircraft, but hopes they will stimulate interest and development in other applications of solar energy. He told an audience in San Francisco recently that the Penguin reaches 25 k.p.h., flying at an altitude of about sm. One of the pilots of the 31 kg craft is Mr MacCready’s 13-year-old son, who weighs 36 kg. The power is generated by a panel of photovoltaic cells producing 450 watts under full sunshine. The larger craft under
construction is called the Solar Challenger. It will weigh 56 kg. Panels of 30,000 cells will drive a 2.5 horsepower engine and the craft is designed to reach a speed of 60 k.p.h. and an altitude of more than 3000 m. Miss Janice Brown, a 31-year-old commercially licensed pilot who weighs 45 kg, will fly it in the London-Paris journey. In addition to the enginerring wizardry in Mr MacCready’s design, a successful. factor is the highstrength but almost weightless plastic materials he uses.—From John Hutchison, in San Francisco.
Sun-powered aircraft
Press, 19 June 1980, Page 17
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