World's First Solar-Propelled Blimp To Cross English Channel 87
An anonymous reader writes "Can a blimp propelled entirely by solar power cross the English Channel? We're about to find out! Nephelios, the world's first solar blimp, was built by Projet Sol'r — a collaboration between students at engineering and technical schools in France. Now, almost a year after its debut (and a year after it was supposed to launch), the helium-filled airship is ready for action, with its inaugural flight set to take place next week. The blimp is covered in semi-flexible solar cells that can generate up to 2.4 kilowatts — enough to keep the blimp moving at 25 mph as it crosses la Manche."
English weather (Score:3, Funny)
Can a blimp propelled entirely by solar power cross the English Channel?
Well not in winter obviously
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It's 21C here in London, rising to 25C this afternoon. 30C at the weekend. I think they've chosen good weather for it :-)
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I'm in Portsmouth. Everyone here is melting. Fans are useless. Send help.
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This sounds like a good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's fly our sunlight-powered flying machine in the most overcast place on earth!
Re:This sounds like a good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, if it works there....
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Well, I don't know how accurate it is, but this link [answers.com] doesn't include anyplace in Hawaii as the cloudiest place on Earth.
Scotland, however, is well represented with 2 of the top 10, which matches their reputation. :-P
Re:This sounds like a good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
First of all- the blimp is not going to crash- helium, not solar power, is what makes it fly. Solar power is just used to propel it.
Second, it's possible to fly above the clouds.
Third, it's going to fly across the channel. Even if it crashes, it's most likely to land on water.
Fourth, aircraft regulations require avoiding densely populated areas if at all possible so even if it crashes on land, it will most likely miss any houses or other important buildings.
Fifth, if against all odds said blimp crashes on land in a populated area, it's filled up with helium, not with hydrogen- so it won't burst into flames and as such it would be a lot less eventful than the Hindenburg. Which was a commercial craft anyway (with paying passengers on board), rather than a somewhat experimental craft attempting to cross the channel.
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if against all odds said blimp crashes on land in a populated area, it's filled up with helium, not with hydrogen
I can hear the high pitched chipmunk screams even now.. :)
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It's possible to fly above the clouds with a blimp - at least low clouds - but generally airships travel at low altitudes. I think the record is at 20000 feet or something, a lot lower than commercial airliners.
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It's possible to fly above the clouds with a blimp - at least low clouds - but generally airships travel at low altitudes. I think the record is at 20000 feet or something, a lot lower than commercial airliners.
Huh? All of the altitude records for manned and unmanned aircraft are held by balloons and blimps. The only things that go higher than blimps are rocket-powered. Current record manned ballooning record is 113,740 ft.
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Ballons, yes, blimps, apparently not.
Re:This sounds like a good idea. (Score:4, Informative)
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helium wile less flammable can still burn.
Helium is a noble element. It will not burn.
but i don't think anything like that will happen. airship have a pretty good safety record. unlike aircraft where we have a major crash every couple years we only had 1 major airship crash .
No, airships have a horrible safety record. Which is why they aren't used anymore. The flying wasn't a problem (most of the time). It was getting the thing landed in anything but the most pristinely calm weather. HUGE surface area means that even the slightest of winds generate tremendous forces. It also meant that getting caught near a pop-up thunder-boomer would turn a summer joy ride into a fight for your life.
also its a good idea to fly low on anything with a uncompressed hall. we learned that in world war 1 lol. being we cant get enough air above 10000 feet. but airships can fly at 20000 if you really what to.
We can do just fine at 10,000ft. From AIM, 8
People are ignorant.... (Score:2)
....about the Hindenburg anyway.
Hydrogen was not the problem. The entire body of the craft was painted in a mix of powdered aluminum, iron oxide, gun powder, and a chemical similar to rocket fuel as a solvent. It's actually amazing that it didn't explode sooner.
Further, over half the passengers on the Hindenburg survived the wreck. Almost NOBODY survives a plane wreck.
For every reason but speed, zeppelins are a superior idea to planes whose time has definitely come again.
Top Gear (Score:3, Insightful)
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Big plans, didn't really go so well
Ambitious - but rubbish!
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How hard can it be?
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are you referring to the one May flew in the episode where he was flying over restricted airspace?
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He had no control over his blimp. They got very angry at him.
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This is true... the epic music and the fact that they sounded angry doesnt really mean they were i guess...
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Crossing the English Channel with your special contraption doesn't hold any interest or awe for me any more. If Jeremy Clarkson can do it in a car boat of his own design, then any idiot can do it. Big deal.
Desperation from France (Score:5, Funny)
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Wow, and I thought people did crazy thinks to sneak over the border into the US.
I suspect that unless there's a special "stealth" mode, folks looking to cross the border would be flying in "pinata" mode.
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They do even crazier things to get out of the US. Like going trough the TSA.
And since when is the UK the US?
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And don't make fun of this : my Grad School participate. Else I might cry.
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"We're about to find out!" (Score:5, Funny)
"We're about to find out!"
I think that these are the words that every scientist strives for.
They don't come out too often, but when they do...
Surely... (Score:5, Funny)
The mammoth airship measures 72 feet long and 18 feet wide and has a nylon and polyethylene aluminum frame.
Surely, with an airship so large, the earth will be plunged into darkness as it passes overhead!
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-1 Whoosh
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Imagine the panic when people think it's Vogons.
like the superbowl in black sunday! (Score:2)
like the superbow in black sunday!
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Mammoth compared to what? Most rigid frame airships are MUCH larger.
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Why is it dumb?
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FTS I thought it was more about the solar panel material they were using for the blimp.
I don't think Bleriot would have been doing it under solar power either.. this thing just seems like a really cool project. Not sure how difficult it is to keep the helium topped up, but apart from that it could just stay up indefinitely and not need refuelling.
why is it dumb? 20 miles of floating is easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it so dumb? With the wind in the right direction you can float over the Channel / La Manche with no power in a few hours anyway, it's only 20 miles or so at its narrowest point. They'll have a support boat so even if the blimp crash lands they'll be able to fish the pilot out.
I'd say it's great university students are encouraged to take on technical challenges. I'd say the risks are pretty low (and I am sure they would have been thoroughly checked out by the universities, nobody wants their students dying).
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you fail to understand the idea of proof of concept.
Obviously next step is crossing the Atlantic and then touring around the world.
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You fail to understand the concept of "cool".
Something is "cool" if, on some level, it makes you think "I want one." I could easily imagine commuting to work in one of these (naturally I can't imagine *everyone* doing that, which of course is part of the charm).
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Lighter than air craft have crossed the Channel a lot (first crossing recorded by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries, Dover to Calais in 1785) - my comment meant that it was not "dumb" as in not impossible, and clearly well thought out. Perhaps I should have clarified that. As my second paragraph noted I am all for it, great to see university students taking on what will be a significant challenge for them.
I'm definitely in the doing stuff category where I can, all for folk doing thi
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Why is it so dumb? With the wind in the right direction you can float over the Channel / La Manche with no power in a few hours anyway
That's why it's so dumb. Ooh, we can use solar power to do something... we could do with no power.
Oh, that was hard. Next: Making the helium filled blimp rise into the air using just solar power!
a good challenge for university students (Score:2)
My point was that it is not dumb because it is a reasonably safe yet challenging task for university students to undertake. If things go wrong, they are not in dangerous territories. I'd suggest university students attempting solar blimp navigation across the Atlantic or the Antarctic might be dumb. But 20 miles seems like a nice challenge.
And interestingly my comment got it in the neck for somebody with the opposite point of view, who makes the fair point that just because it's easy for NASA or a large cor
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"yeah. cause theres no possible use whatsoever for something that can stay in the sky, powered, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."
Maybe, when the sun is down, it can become the world's first tidal-powered submarine.
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Maybe I'm just stating the obvious, but a balloon filled with helium doesn't need power to stay airborne, unless things changed since my time. Though who knows, balloons these days...
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Maybe it's a hybrid airship... [wikipedia.org]
Or more likely, the GP is just being an ass.
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"Maybe I'm just stating the obvious, but a balloon filled with helium doesn't need power to stay airborne, unless things changed since my time. Though who knows, balloons these days..."
To state the REALLY obvious, which you seemed to miss, is that a helium filled balloon also will not sink in WATER, and thus my suggesting it become a submarine would seem to MOST as a joke--as it was intended to be...and apparently not a very good one.
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They expect is to cruise at 60mph with top speed at 100mph. It is supposed to be operational in 2013
This project could totally be adapted, with extra funding like the one they would get by crossing the Channel, with a bigger structure and a battery, to run day and night.
Embrace entrepreneurship (Score:2)
How is the next generation going to embrace entrepreneurship via ~
You should have just taken an existing blimp and put a solar panels on it or something.
Less of Homer and more Herbert Powell.
now that's quick! (Score:2, Interesting)
3HP and it'll do 25mph. Impressive.
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I think they factored in wind speed as well though...
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Oh Yeah? (Score:3, Funny)
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Ultimate greenness (Score:2, Interesting)
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That wouldn't work as a lifting gas but it could power a pretty sweet afterburner system.
Solar-powered? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Jules Verne is way ahead of you [wikipedia.org].
Re:Solar-powered? (Score:4, Informative)
Did they use solar power to produce the metal and/or carbon fiber for that plane? If not, then by your argument the plane isn't solar powered either. The helium in the blimp is not being consumed like a fuel source, it's just a structural component like whatever other materials encase it. Helium just happens to passively have negative relative mass compared to the medium the blimp is flying in, which lets the blimp fly.
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I think most helium is produced by stellar fusion of hydrogen. (May have been a previous star that went supernova and seeded the nebula that created the sun and the planets billions of years ago.
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Most helium, yes. Most helium used on Earth, no.
Nearly all the helium produced in the twentieth century came from the ground under Amarillo, Texas where it was created by fissioning of alpha-emitting ores. This near-monopoly on helium, and Germany's deployment of military airships in WW1, resulted in an embargo on helium which explains why the Hindenburg was inflated with hydrogen.
AFAIK, Amarillo is the only city in the world that has a mon
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Lift != power. In a winged aircraft the lift is provided by pressure differential which comes from its speed, in a blimp the lift comes from the fact that helium floats in air. It's not powered by helium; the power is for forward movement.
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So, a sailboat is not wind-powered because it would still float if the wind weren't blowing?
AERODYNAMIC:AEROSTATIC=HYDRODYNAMIC:HYDROSTATIC, in SAT terms.
rj
Break out the Spitfires boys (Score:1, Funny)
It's time for target practice
I, for one... (Score:2)
Sky Truckers! (Score:2)
And that will give rise to sky-pirates, and my dreams will be complete!
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Ya. We have unlimited supplies of helium.
Oh, wait, no we don't.
Hydrogen could be done fairly safe these days, though, I think?
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Hydrogen burns straight up, and anyway you can build the lifting chamber with thermally isolated cells.
We drive next to rolling bombs every day and never notice.
The Hindenburg was coated with metal oxide paint; it was like igniting thermite. The flames you see in the video are mostly paint burning. Hydrogen burns with a nearly transparent flame.
Interesting (Score:1)