Solar Impulse Pilot Midway Through 72 Hour Flight Simulation

Solar Impulse Pilot Midway Through 72 Hour Flight Simulation:

Solar Impulse pilot Andre Borschberg is back in the cockpit again, this time for 72 straight hours at the controls. The endurance flight is in preparation for the team’s longest flight to date, scheduled to take place this summer. And as he enters the second night of flying, Borschberg hasn’t gone anywhere. The Swiss pilot is sitting on the ground in a simulator, while the Solar Impulse team runs him through a laundry list of tests to explore the ability of a pilot to fly long durations in the solar powered airplane.

The flight started on Tuesday and is taking place in a full size mock up of the cockpit of the second Solar Impulse airplane, currently under construction. Borschberg has an array of wires and sensors hooked up to his body to monitor him during the three day flight. In addition to pushing the limits of alertness and sleep deprived piloting, the experiment is also aimed at further refining the cockpit design which will include space for a second pilot to rest, as well as other mission critical equipment.

“Used for the first time the toilet on board” Borschberg tweeted a little more than a day into the test, ”needs careful manipulation but it worked…”

During a solar powered around-the-world flight scheduled for 2014, Borschberg will share the flying duties with Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard. They plan to take turns at the controls climbing in altitude during the day, while slowly descending when the solar power switch turns off at night. The team already tested the technique during a 26 hour flight in 2010.

The global flight will take place in stages with shorter legs over land expected to be between 24 and 36 hours. During these legs pilots are not expected to sleep. But during the over water legs, the pilots will have to take “micro-naps” of 20 minutes or so, something that is being tested during the current simulation.

The second Solar Impulse airplane, known as HB-SIB, is currently under construction and is expected to begin flight testing this spring.

The first airplane, HB-SIA (pictured at top), has a wing span of 208 feet and was powered by four, 10 horsepower electric motors and nearly 12,000 solar cells. Cruise speed was less than 50 miles per hour. The new airplane will be larger with a pressurized cockpit allowing the pilots to climb to airliner cruising altitudes of nearly 40,000 feet.

Photos: Solar Impulse/Jean Revillard