First solar aircraft

Press, 9 August 1980, Page 8

First solar aircraft

[NZPA Los Angeles The Gossamer Penguin gathered energy from the “sun and flew a low, 3.2 km 11 bouncing path to claim a bit • i of aviation history yester■iday. i -The event’ at Dryden ’[Flight Research Centre on ,'Edwards Air Force Base in '[California was the first sus--I'tained solar-powered flight ~ in history, said the craft’s 'designer, Paul MacCready, l

>|who also built the human--1 powered Gossamer Condor i and Gossamer Albatross. i Janice Brown, aged 32, the t see-through plane’s 43kg - pilot, said the Penguin hit a top speed of 26.5 km/h and! ijonce climbed as high as i!3.7m as it flew over the i cracked, brown surface of a ■ stream bed in the desert. i Mr MacCready said the ; 31kg Penguin, as well as a /much more sophisticated l

successor now being built, is “a symbol trying to get people to understand the value of photo-voltaic cells.”

The cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, are [mounted on a platform over the Penguin’s 22m wing. They power a small electric motor that rotates a rearmounted propeller. The plane, sheathed in paper-thin clear plastic, looks like a giant insect. Tugged aloft by a bicvcle the craft spent most of its flight barely off the ground. Several times its rear wheel kicked up dust. I The Solar Challenger, I which may make its maiden flight next month, is planned: as a rugged craft that couldj cover 160 km and reach alti-l tudes of 3000 m with the power of the sun, Mr Mac-1 Cready said. I