Should all bode well, one of the coming days may well finally be the one on which Solar Impulse 2 will finally touch down in Nanjing. Currently held hostage in Chongqing by unpredictable weather conditions along the route to Nanjing in the attempt to circle the globe in a aircraft powered solely by the sun, it is reported that the earliest opportunity for take off shall be this Thursday 16th April.
What makes the Nanjing part of the trip special is the fact that it is from here that the aircraft will embark on the longest leg of its journey; a trip that represents five days for one man alone miles above above the Pacific Ocean in a 3 sq.m. unpressurised compartment. It is for this very reason that it was decided Solar Impulse spend up to a month in Nanjing, for all the exhaustive preparations to be made.
Especially prior to this next trans-Pacific leg, a yoga teacher shall be preparing Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg for eventualities such as burn out, while Piccard, himself a trained psychiatrist, also uses self hypnosis to help ready himself. “The physical side you can deal with, but you need mental strength as well”, Media Relations Officer for Solar Impulse 2: Round-The-World, Elke Neumann, told Nanjing Expat.
Elsewhere in the HR department, in addition to other people on the team who are professionals in their field; physicists, mechanical and aerospace engineers, structural and aerodynamics experts plus composite materials professionals; there are also people from all walks of life who have joined the cause. Engineers, policemen, lawyers, businesspeople and even a bee keeper are among the people who have in some cases taken time off from their work for six months in the name of solar power.
Given that it will have taken two weeks or more, when all is said and done, for one man to travel from Chongqing to Nanjing, solar-powered commercial aviation is not on the horizon. Instead what the initiative is hoping to do is help create ways where very real changes can take place over how we work with our environment.
A look at the tail fin of the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft reveals sponsors who may initially appear an unlikely fit for an aviation project; ABB, Omega, Schindler and Solvay. In one specific example, German material science giant Bayer provides the high tech insulation for the cockpit of the aircraft, technologies they claim they are beginning to now apply in real-world applications such as in the insulation of refrigerators, as a result helping to reduce the amount of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) necessary to maintain the cool temperatures.
Getting the plane and its team across the many borders and bureaucratic jurisdictions it encounters along its route has also not been without its challenges. The team even has two full time employees whose sole responsibility is handling the paperwork associated with such. While Swiss embassies along the route have been very supportive in helping to smooth the ways wherever possible, it has not all been plain flying. Upon arrival in Ahmedabad, India, a hiccup occurred that resulted in the pilot’s passport not being stamped upon entry. It left him, one of the most famous people in the world for the moment, as an illegal alien in India for five days. “It’s definitely been a lesson. Now we are able to laugh about it, but at the time it was really serious”, Neumann confided.
On from India to China. The cynics among us may like to suggest that a major factor in the aircraft’s delay in departing Chongqing is pollution related. However, this is not the case; it turns out that charging the plane’s batteries can take place under a polluted sky just as well as it can under a cloudy sky. Before the aircraft’s departure from Abu Dhabi however, dusty local conditions did become an issue, resulting in a “clogging-up” of the solar cells that thus reduced their efficiency.
For us Nanjpingers hoping to get a first hand look at Solar Impulse 2, the news is not good; airport security means no viewings of the plane will be possible. As a result, the team is encouraging anyone interested to interact with them via social media.
Find out more and/or follow Solar Impulse 2 via the following links:
facebook.com/solarimpulse
twitter.com/solarimpulse
solarimpulse.sina.com.cn
weibo.com/u/5388701147
solarimpulse.sina.com.cn/futureisclean
