A Solar Ship Company from Toronto has designed a solar powered aircraft able to travel 1,000 kilometers carrying up to1,000 kilograms of cargo.
Most impressive is that it is able to take off and land on a place no larger than a high-school soccer field.
You could say is an airship, not quite an airplane but maybe more hybrid of both. The solar powered aircraft has a delta shape and is filled with helium only to lift it off the ground.
Solar panels on the top of its fuselage backed up by a lithium-ion battery system gives enough electricity to drive it into the air. The design of the solar powered aircraft gives it the right balance between blimp and plane.
According to Jay Godsall, the founder and chief executive of Solar Ship Company, the aircraft is able to go where no roads are built, in places where landing locations are too small or have been destroyed, and where existing helicopters and airplanes cannot reach on a single tank of fuel.
He plans to hold just such a demonstration in summer 2013 when a test flight of a smaller solar ship designed to carry a light load of medical supplies is expected in late 2012, somewhere in Africa.
