Solar Flight

I see that there's a Swiss outfit that is working on a solar powered aircraft. This is test-bed technology and there is always something cool about test-bed aircraft, especially when they're in the proof of concept stage.

The idea is to see if they can power flight using solar panels and batteries, to fly round the clock. and eventually around the globe. This is cool stuff.

However, before we get all misty-eyed, reveling in "green flight", we'd do well to look at the aircraft itself and understand what is necessary to make this thing fly. Carbon, lots of carbon. It's made of composites, which in this day and age means carbon-fiber. Which is, after all, carbon. It uses batteries, the manufacture of which requires lots of carbon. It uses lightweight plastics, which requires... you got it.

It might be interesting to build a Sopwith Camel, or perhaps a wooden aircraft on the lines of the de Havilland Mosquito, then compare the carbon footprint of the two, sitting side by side.