世界首架太阳能飞机瑞士试飞

世界上首架可实现昼夜飞行的太阳能飞机——“阳光动力”号本周三在瑞士首都伯尔尼附近的一座军用机场成功完成首次试飞。此次试飞持续了87分钟，最高飞行高度达到了1200米。试飞的飞行员表示，试飞过程中飞机性能与在飞行模拟器上得到的结果一致，其控制性完全符合预期。据介绍，“阳光动力”号飞机翼展与空客340的翼展长度相当，机身重量约1600千克，相当于一辆普通中型轿车的重量，飞机机翼上铺排了将近12000块太阳能板，为4部螺旋桨引擎提供动力，并将多余电量存储到电池内以供夜航使用。这架太阳能飞机最终预期的平均飞行速度将为每小时70千米，而最高飞行高度也有望达到8500米，计划将在2012年进行环球飞行。

A solar-powered airplane designed to fly day and night without fuel or emissions successfully made its first test flight above the Swiss countryside on Wednesday.

The Solar Impulse, which has 12,000 solar cells built into its wings, is a prototype for an aircraft intended to fly around the world without fuel in 2012.

It glided for 87 minutes above western Switzerland at an altitude of 1,200 meters (3,937 feet) with German test pilot Markus Scherdel at the controls.

"Everything went as it should," Scherdel told Reuters Television at Payerne military base after landing.

It took six years to build the carbon fiber aircraft, which has the wingspan of an Airbus A340 and weighs as much as a mid-size car (1,600 kg).

The prototype made a "flea hop" in December 2009, flying a distance of 350 meters one meter above the runway of a military airbase near Zurich. It was then transported to Payerne airfield in the west of Switzerland for its maiden flight.

The propeller plane is powered by four electric motors and designed to fly day and night by saving energy from its solar cells in high-performance batteries.

It is ultimately expected to attain an average flying speed of 70 km per hour and reach a maximum altitude of 8,500 meters (27,900 feet).

Bertrand Piccard, one of the Swiss pilots behind the project, is best known for completing the first non-stop, round-the-world flight in a hot-air balloon in March 1999.

The other main pilot, Swiss engineer Andre Borschberg, has described it as "ten times lighter than the very best glider."

"Such a large wingspan for so little weight is something completely new in the world of aviation," he said on the initiative's website www.solarimpulse.com.

The project's budget is 100 million Swiss francs ($94 million), 80 million francs of which has been secured from sponsors, according to spokeswoman Rachel de Bros.

Belgian chemicals company Solvay, Swiss watchmaker Omega, part of the Swatch group, and German banking giant Deutsche Bank, are the three main sponsors.

Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), one of two Swiss federal polytechnical universities, is scientific advisor.