No, not a visionary. A visionary is one who bases his dreams on a sure foundation whereas a fantasist’s dreams have little basis in reality.

Charlie can you answer my question above ? I appreciate you critique a lot ( I have only concentrated on this efficient flite for the last 16 years or so ). There is still lot to do to make this real…I confess that.

Troller or fantasist??:rolleyes:

I hope none of those. How about a visionary ?

No paying passenger will ever pedal…that is a certainty.

What if it is disguised as a GYM…and everyone pedalling there would pay extra..without knowing that they actually run the ships vital systems by pedalling ? :confused:

Firstly what you care to do when sailing with friends is totally irrelevant and secondly that assumption is just as likely to be wholly flawed as not, so hardly the basis for the viability of a serious project. I would suggest you test it before venturing much further, since it appears to stand or fall on passenger power.

It is possible..the pedal power is only 4.7 % of the total solar power…easily to be made with just extra batteries.

With the speed it flies at, you’ll have to fly at night as well.

You’d have to sedate passengers to have them agree to fly in such a confined space. But of course, they won’t produce power. Unless … Have you seen Matrix ?

For my part, I’ll take the train, thank you very much.

I have seen Matrix all the rest of the SF celluloid fantasies.

1/8 includes the cargo area..strictly passenger room is 1/4th..just a tad tighter and lower rooms with less wide corridors etc.

It does not have fly at nite…if flying from east to west….but it may have to fly a tad faster than TU-95 “gummibear”..perhaps 950 km/h at 25-30 000 meters !

It might not be CS-25 exactly but many of the rules are there to protect the fare-paying public from poor aircraft design so if it wasn’t CS-25 it will be very similar.

Anyway, you haven’t explained how you are going to generate enough power to pressurize a fuselage to 8000ft cabin while outside is it 82000ft! Where does the bleed air come from? How is it heated to reasonable comfort levels? How do you keep the leading the airframe free from ice? What facilities do passengers need when airborne for over 24hours and how are they powered?
Designing an airliner is a lot more than speed and power.
Your solar panels would need to generate at least 20 times the power you are proposing to be even close to how a modern aircraft operates.

Derekf !

I think it seems for you and many others almost impossible to comprehend this aircraft cause you are so bound to see things happening as they are happening today in jet powered aircrafts !

See the enclosed illustration…it is bigger than TU-95 in lifting area ( in fact 2.6 times bigger than Solar Impulse in area )..it weighs less than SAAB 340 but carries a load of ATR 72.

There is a new way to produce oxygen that uses also the used air…over and over. Divers use it…also pedal power is possible to use compressors ( 50 passengers produce easily 8 kW ).

The efficiency comes from cleaner airframe…electric engines don’t scoop air like combustion engines and jets….to slow the speed…thus needing more power to compensate it.

if you understand 3D thinking…imagine Solar Challenger of 1981 by MacCready..it carried one person and had frontal area of 5.16 m2..this has 9.5 times more…but carries 74 people…so this is ( frontal area wise) 7.8 times more efficient…but has same the output per person…if you simplify it a lot…it is roughly 8 times more efficient than a 1981 solar aircraft ! When flying on battery assisted power too it is ( 3 x 8 = ) 24 times more efficient..or powerful.

The wings are hot for the solar panels so they don’t freeze. Possibly in decent the power could be used to heat the wings when power for thrust doesn’t exist. I am not saying this is an easy task..this is “helluva” lot more complicated than any todays aircraft !

Then again it needs no fuel…and is quiet and produces no emissions !

You’re talking about aircraft that would never get a CS-23/25 certification as a passenger aircraft.

I did a bit of a Google and the nearest 36 seat airliner I could find was a SAAB 340. It uses 2 1300kW engines to fly not very fast and not very high but reasonably efficiently. That’s 76kW per passenger.
It needs that sort of power to get airborne in a reasonable distance, climb to a reasonable height and fly 34 people to their destination. Your aircraft has 5% of the power so can you tell me it would be able to accelerate to a reasonable take-off speed in around 5000ft, climb to 25000ft and carry its passengers in air conditioned comfort at 0.5M for a couple of hours.
In addition it has to power the air conditioning, the pressurization, the hydraulics, electrics, anti-icing etc. etc. All from a total of 160kW?

I would not worry about the certification since the craft has 40 km/h stall speed. This has never been seen before and rules would have to be renewed.

The solar alone version is slow…but battery assisted can go high…and if flying from east to west can go a long way.