Check this out, a Solar Powered Electric Sailplane on the front page of the New York Times.
This sailplane, with solar panels flew for 26 hours, storing enough charge to remain airborne through the night. Beautiful looking sailplane, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/wo...e.html?_r=1&hp

Absolutely awesome Thanks for posting the link
210' wingspan
The article stated that his iPod batteries died from the cold (no Enya tunes). That makes me wonder what impact the overnight cold temperatures had on the battery capacity for the motor
Regards,
Pete

PilotPete, have you been flying in this heat, here in VT? I flew my 2.3m Hyper yesterday, in Montgomery, and I have to fly before 9:00am. By 9:30, my black Futaba Tx was getting too hot to hold from the sun.

cheers, ray

Hi Ray,
I spent the day over at Guildhall, VT yesterday. Too hot for much flying, spent most of the time hangar flying in the shade and drinking iced tea and lemonade.
That Hyper looks great. One of these days I have to do a full house sailplane, but the 2M Diemos I I picked up from Sal on a closeout years ago just keeps floating along
Pete

bigger the better, how would they land that with the rudder like that?

Solar Plane Completes Round-the-clock Flight (2 min 16 sec)

nothing in the world than the feeling of seeing it land

outngo,
thanks for posting the video link!. Nice view of Mont Blanc in one airborne shot, too. It looks like there is a single extended centerline nose gear, and a wheel at the bottom of the vertical stab.
Outboard engines are shut down on final (though not windmilling), for drag? The outboard prop blades don't appear to be feathered. (I wonder if the propellers are constant speed, ie variable pitch).

As it touches down there is a cyclist (!) pedaling at the same speed as the Solar plane, so touchdown speed, in ground effect is probably around 20-25 mph.