Friday, December 19, 2025
ADVT 
National

Good Weather And Some Luck Could Bring A Record-Shattering Solar Impulse 2 Aircraft To Vancouver

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 14 Apr, 2016 01:12 PM
    Vancouver is one of four locations being considered as the North American West Coast destination for a history-making flight.
     
    Scientists and pilots linked to the round-the-world flight of a solar-powered airplane are expected to decide the destination in the next month as they await a favourable weather window.
     
    West Coast destinations, including Phoenix, the San Francisco area and Los Angeles, have been selected to allow maximum flexibility for route planning and weather conditions.
     
    The Solar Impulse 2 is able to fly day and night without fuel and has completed one jump across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Hawaii on its way across North America and Europe to Abu Dhabi.
     
     
    But a news release from the programs co-founders says the 117-hour, 52-minute non-stop 8,900-kilometre flight last July overheated the batteries and the plane has been grounded in Hawaii since then, completing repairs and test flights.
     
    The single-seat, carbon fibre Solar Impulse 2 weighs little more than a small car and has more than 17,000 solar cells built into its nearly 72-metre wingspan, providing renewable energy for four electric engines.
     
    "An airplane with perpetual flight endurance, without fuel, like the Solar Impulse, is not only a first in the history of aviation, but also in the history of energy," Bertrand Piccard, the project's chairman, said in the release.
     
    "The primary purpose of this adventure is to demonstrate that modern clean technologies can achieve the impossible and encourage everyone to use these same energy efficient solutions on the ground in their daily lives for mobility, construction, lighting, heating, cooling and more."

    MORE National ARTICLES

    Chilliwack, B.C., Man Charged In Idaho With Trying To Lure Teen For Sex

    Chilliwack, B.C., Man Charged In Idaho With Trying To Lure Teen For Sex
    Jones, 42, appeared in court on Monday and was ordered held a $50,000 bond while awaiting a preliminary hearing on April 18.

    Chilliwack, B.C., Man Charged In Idaho With Trying To Lure Teen For Sex

    Judge Orders Edit Of Documentary Criticizing Vancouver Aquarium

    Judge Orders Edit Of Documentary Criticizing Vancouver Aquarium
    Gary Charbonneau was instructed Monday to remove just under five minutes of video from his hour-long film "Vancouver Aquarium Uncovered" within seven days.

    Judge Orders Edit Of Documentary Criticizing Vancouver Aquarium

    Two Dead After Via Train Collides With Vehicle East Of Chatham, Ont.

    Two Dead After Via Train Collides With Vehicle East Of Chatham, Ont.
    Two women have died after a passenger train collided with a car just east of Chatham, Ont.

    Two Dead After Via Train Collides With Vehicle East Of Chatham, Ont.

    Two Adults, Baby Killed In Two-Vehicle Collision In New Brunswick

    Two Adults, Baby Killed In Two-Vehicle Collision In New Brunswick
    The accident was reported around 6:30 p.m. Monday at the intersection of Homestead Road and Route 112, north of Salisbury

    Two Adults, Baby Killed In Two-Vehicle Collision In New Brunswick

    Mountie Killed In Two-Vehicle Crash Near Victoria

    Mountie Killed In Two-Vehicle Crash Near Victoria
      Media photos taken at the crash site show a pickup truck and a badly damaged RCMP cruiser at an intersection in Langford, B.C.

    Mountie Killed In Two-Vehicle Crash Near Victoria

    20,000 Litres Of Diesel Fuel Spill Into B.C.'s Similkameen River After Transport Truck Crash

    20,000 Litres Of Diesel Fuel Spill Into B.C.'s Similkameen River After Transport Truck Crash
    The truck was involved in a motor vehicle incident on Highway 3 at about 8 a.m. Monday, and a ministry employee is at the site.

    20,000 Litres Of Diesel Fuel Spill Into B.C.'s Similkameen River After Transport Truck Crash