
Solar Impulse forced to land in Japan - Libertatea
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32955880
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soggypretzels
For those of you wondering, it is due to weather concerns:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-32955880](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32955880)

They will continue when the conditions are better.

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acomjean
>The experimental craft, which is covered in 17,000 solar cells, took off from
Abu Dhabi in March.

Its odd that when this was just working (last few month it flew pretty far) it
didn't seem to get much coverage (I hadn't heard of it anyway). News is weird
to me in that it like to focus in when things are going wrong, not when
something remarkable is happening.

Hope this setback brings some additional coverage.

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jokr004
It's hard to sell several months of "it's still working". After the initial
coverage, the only thing really worth talking about are the unexpected things
and unexpected things tend to be bad.

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spiritplumber
That's still an incredible achievement!

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Grue3
It seems the shorter route (great circle) would've been via Kamchatka and
Alaska.

[http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=NKG-SFO](http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=NKG-SFO)

As you can see, flying via Hawaii is quite a detour.

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rtkwe
They're not going for the short route, it's an endurance tour and also a small
test run of their circumnavigation effort. The goal isn't just getting from A
to B. Also staying near the equator gives them a better solar exposure as the
sun will be directly overhead each day.

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Retric
The earth tilts so the ideal location is between the Tropic of Cancer durring
the Northern solstice, and Tropic of Capricorn durring the December or
southern solstice.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Capricorn)

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pingou
I thought it was supposed to fly above the clouds to get as much sunshine as
possible but apparently the cabin isn't pressurized, probably to save weight.

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barney54
During the day, the plane ascends and then, to save battery power, slowly
descends like a glider during the evening.

