On the Alps of Valais, in a clear summer sky, a white plane advanced slowly, almost silent. He wore turbines or burned chest: it only depended on sunlight. In the cabin, the Swiss driver Raphaël Domjan faced a challenge that a few years ago seemed unattainable: demonstrating that aviation can also gain height without spending a single drop of fossil fuel.
On August 12, the Solarstrates project reached 9,521 meters altitude After taking off from Zion. This exceeded the world flight record on a solar plane, which since 2010 held the lot promoted with 9,235 meters, which turned the world between 2015 and 2016, As France remembered 24.
Five hours to make history. The ascent lasted five hours and nine minutes, carefully planned for the plane to take off with 100% charged batteries with solar energy. During the journey, they even crossed with a passenger plane, a moment that the team described as the most powerful image of what could be aviation of the future, As Berner Zeitung said.
HB-SXA SOLARS It is an ultralight biplaza carbon fiber, with wings covered with high -performance solar panels. It weighs just 450 kilos and does not have pressurized cabin, which forced domjja to bring oxygen on board, According to France 24. Its benefits are modest – dispensing at low speed and does not exceed 140 km/h – but its design allows you to reach heights reserved so far to conventional aviation.
Not a drop of kerosene. Beyond the figures, Domjan’s goal is to demonstrate that a clean aviation is possible. “My goal is to show today’s generations and tomorrow that it will still be possible to fly without fossil fuels,” declared CBS.
The pilot himself is no stranger to pioneer adventures. In 2012, he completed the first return to the world on a ship driven only by solar energy, The planetsolara futuristic catamaran who showed that the sea could also arise without fossil fuels, Berner Zeitung recalled. That journey, which lasted more than a year and a half and left Monaco, made him an international reference of clean mobility.
A record still to validate. The International Aeronautical Federation (FAI) must confirm the record by reviewing the altitude data, which are certified according to the pressure and air density, France remembered 24. The organization is reviewing the flight data according to its standards.
SOLARSTRATS
The eyes set in the stratosphere. The record flight is not the end, but one more step towards a larger goal: to exceed 10,000 meters, the cruise altitude of commercial airplanes, and then reach the stratosphere, which in Switzerland begins around 12,000 meters.
The road has been full of attempts and learning. On July 31, soarstrats reached 6,589 meters; Days later he reached 8,224, although he had to interrupt the ascent due to lack of thermal currents, According to Techxplore. “Being a pioneer means trying something without having the certainty that it will work out,” Summarized Domjjan in statements to the AFP agency collected by RTL.
Epilogue. Although the official validation still remains, the image of a small solar plane flying next to a commercial plane is already recorded as a symbol of the transition to a clean aviation. Since the Swiss Alps, the suns has not only beaten a record: it has opened a door to a future in which the unthinkable begins to fly with sun energy.
Image | SOLARSTRATS
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