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Blazing a trail with solar power

In a hangar outside Zurich, engineers are paring away at the obstacles to a very 21^st century challenge: flying a plane around the world powered by nothing but the rays of the sun. If the Solar Impulse project goes to plan, in 2011 a gangly aircraft with the wingspan of an Airbus A380 and the weight of a compact car will attempt to circle the globe in about a month at an average speed of 43 m.p.h. (70 km/h), landing only five times along the way.

The challenge, says Piccard, is to keep going until the next sunrise before the batteries are empty: “We have very little margin of error from night into day. Each dawn will be a moment of incredible suspense.” For the 2011 flight, he and Boschberg will do alternating stints of five days and five nights between landings. A day on the ground spent charging in the sunlight should be enough to get the plane back into the air the next morning for another stage in its globe-girdling journey.

It’s a delicate enterprise, complicated by meteorological challenges and the ungainliness of a plane this big and light. Even Piccard doesn’t envision solar planes replacing today’s airliners anytime soon, but that’s not the point. To reduce emissions, he believes, aviation will eventually need to wean itself from fossil fuels. “To make reasonable use of any alternative,” he says, “we have to become lighter and more aerodynamic to reduce consumption.” Solar Impulse promises to generate an array of futuristic insights — and some old-fashioned thrills along the way.

Internet: <www.time.com> (adapted).

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The aircraft prototype, which is made of low-density carbon fiber, will be able to circle the globe in about a month.