In this age of intercontinental travel, the setting of aviation records may seem like a throwback to a bygone era. But there remain boundaries to push, and Solar Impulse’s bid to set new endurance standards for solar powered, no-fuel flying is impressive and important.
Impressive because to build a 747-sized aircraft with the mass of a family car capable of flying day and night on the power of a motor scooter requires a new state-of-the-art in design, materials, power management and avionics, not to mention pilot fitness.
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Important because achieving all those things shows that the “impossible” is possible with existing technologies. For André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, that “impossible” is not flying round-the-world in a solar aircraft – it is the dramatic reduction in energy consumption needed to prevent runaway climate change.
Their message, to be repeated to anyone who will listen at every stop on their journey, is to ditch the fatalistic assumption that only a return to Stone Age lifestyles can avert cataclysmic global warming. Here, they are saying, in this magnificent aircraft, is the proof.
But can Solar Impulse realistically hope to inspire “concrete action toward a clean future”? We should all hope so – although it is entirely possible that many people will compare their own lifestyle options with such a fragile, expensive and impractical machine, however impressive, and remain mired in fatalism.
Source: Flight International
