| Imagine... long distance flights with a total equipment weight of 20kg... greatly reduced noise from electric motor drive... all the safety and simplicity of a paraglider... short start and landing fields... motor flight without regrets... Is it possible?
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| How comes... that a clumsy paraglider is better than a Solair II(see also here), a thoroughly optimized solar plane of the second generation, given the same efficiency of the cells? Note three things: although the min. sink of Solair II is 0.35m/s (paraglider: <1.1m/s), the paraglider weighs with pilot only about a third of the Solair II (250kg). Weight is the main issue of low powered flight. Second, the air speed of a paraglider is almost half (35km/h vs. 50-90km/h) which reduces drag by a factor of 3-4. Third, a paraglider offers about twice the area for solar cells. These factors all compensate for imperfect aerodynamics of a paraglider. Do you see potential in this? Send us an email and comment at this early stage. Or make a text for one of these pages. Or mail to be informed about updates of the site. As of now, we want to collect more detailed information on motor design, paraglider fabrication and light-weight and cheap solar cells. We want to establish this site to discuss and show the state of the art in developing a solar paraglider. |
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Anasazi
Pictograph
from Horseshoe Canyon,
Canyonlands Nationalpark, Utah, USA (2000B.C.-500A.D.) |