So if the max speed is 27kts, what is the stall speed?
I think I may get higher top speed than 50 km/h in sea level possibly 100-120 km/h with full solar power. But it climbs efficiently at 50 km/h.
Here are some other minimalistic planes with frontal area and weight and min power.
But the CAA i doubt will get involved with that 🙂
Right if the dinner table or bed isn’t in the 180 seater passenger plane.
Where are the passengers ?
QinetiQ is going to fly to 40 000 meters with a solar R/C plane.
Oh you can die at low speed and low height
Right you can even die at dinner table or in bed. Hopefully not.
Ok..but no casualties.
16kts?
Well, on that note, as they , I’m out.
Best of luck in the future but there is perhaps a reason why this sort thing hasn’t been at looked before.
Right..there would be no NTSB investigations after the crash that takes place at 18-20 kts speed.
But it still goes near the speed of sound at high …tracks the sun from east to west !
Solar-powered 180 seater!?!? What power are the motors for that?
1050 hp.
So if the max speed is 27kts, what is the stall speed?
STALL IS AT 28-32 KM/H DEPENDING OF THE CREW. Oooops caps lock on.
I have no desire to prick anyone’s bubble but some of your figures don’t really work.
A sea level top speed of of 50km/h is only 27kts. What sort of wing section would stay unstalled at that speed. If 50km/h is the max speed presumably it takes off at less than that. A stiff breeze would see it exceed VMO ….on the ground!
36km is 118000ft! It will need a major (and heavy) pressurization system to ensure that the crew can exist at all. Any problem with the ECS would kill the crew in seconds if they have no space suits.
A propeller simply isn’t going to work at that height. There is not enough air.
Your original question
The answer is not yet…if ever.
Here is the foil.
Prop has to be specially designed for the job. 8.5 m dia 5 blader is on the 180 seater. Numbers show excellent thrust !
Not to 65,000 – 120,000 feet and 50 – 500 km/h they don’t!
With sixteen horsepower? Which one?
When you say ‘research aircraft’ what sort of research; research into whether it can be done or research that needs to be carried-out above 65,000 feet?
No HPAs fly at 280 watts…endlessly if the pedaller could.
No aircraft has flown over altitude of 17500 m with prop ever..that is the point here.
My apologies for not looking at all your concepts before asking my questions; to an extent you have answered some of them already in your concepts.
One of your concepts states 12.5kW from 24m² of ~50% efficient solar-panels which sounds a little high to me. (I always remember the figure of 1kW per m² under ideal conditions, ideal conditions!) So there I think is your first problem (and the reason that there are no solar-powered cars)!
To put this in context, last year Volkswagen launched an experimental all-electric Golf (e-Golf); it was powered by a single 85kW (114 horsepower!) electric motor. To power this with 50% efficient solar-panels under ideal conditions would require a solar-panel area 4 metres wide by over 40 metres long; how do you fit that on a VW Golf? And this 85kW e-Golf does not have to fly.
So are you saying that the total area of your aircraft can be covered in ~50% efficient solar panels given that it must also be extremely efficient aerodynamically and function as an aircraft?
Your total ideal power, even at ~50% efficiency, is only just sufficient to run one of your two 10kW motors (even assuming a 100% efficient motor) so you have been forced to add (heavy) auxiliary batteries.
Another problem I foresee are the propellers; a propeller that will be even remotely efficient at zero altitude and also at 20,000 metres will surely be highly compromised at most altitudes and speeds (especially if it is fixed pitch). That will waste much of your solar-power; solar-power that you just do not have to start with.
Can you find me any aircraft that has ever flown with only sixteen horsepower; what were its performance figures like? Could it get three crew to 65,000 feet?
Nobody can stop you dreaming but people only invest in reality; good luck! 🙂
I think only one can fly to 65-120 000 ft.
Below are the options with more span.
Human powered aeropanes fly at 0.28 kW constantly. Ten times less power / kg.
Yes they are but that is because the potential yield from the fulfilment of the patent can be considerable. So do you know if prior art exists for any of your seven inventions? Have you had any “public” feedback since 2003?
Several of the inventions are just to use different inventions in a new environment…some seem to be purpose designed…never seen before. Few I won’t reveal…just in case.
Presumably you have applied for patents.
Patents are too expensive. I just need to make them public to be able to use’em after someone else has patented them.
My response to these calculations appearing in a GD forum is – if it’s that easy, why hasn’t somebody done it ?
This kinda talks starts right before I am banned ? What if no one ever tought about it…I came up with idea to use mother ship fuel via parasite booster in 2003. This has 7 inventions in a new lay out to make it happen.
…..and what is a GD forum anyway ?
No, it needs a source of air to continually pressurize the cabin. Conventional aircraft usually bleed it off the engines. 25km is spacesuit territory. Lying down…..
So space crafts never happened…and man never went to moon ?