
Solar-powered plane crossing Pacific: Live telemetry - willyt
http://www.solarimpulse.com/widget-energy
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netcan
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
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-
ener...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340066560/velkess-energy-
storage)

 _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
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?

~~~
contingencies
Allegedly from a comment during development on their kickstarter, an
experienced fire engineer helped to design the four layer security system -
running the flywheel to breaking point never damaged any layer except the
innermost. However, this is yet to be seen in production, so YMMV.

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nshepperd
Site apparently does not work in firefox...

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anarcat
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.

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

~~~
AReallyGoodName
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.

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

~~~
dogma1138
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
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
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
An article about the flight: [http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-
News/2008/March/1/End...](http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-
News/2008/March/1/Endurance-Test-Circa-1958)

~~~
rgbrenner
picture:
[https://rollandjennison.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/enduranc...](https://rollandjennison.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/endurance-
test.jpg)

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pepijndevos
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
Telemetry is back up. Yay.

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

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joeyspn
> Solar-powered plane _crossing Pacific_

Looks like they're actually attempting a trip around the world...

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dogma1138
This is now the longest and most dangerous leg in their flight over 9000 KM
and over the pacific.

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

