Planes

Planes Pathfinder-Plus – Solar Wing Record at 80,201 Feet NASA's dream of a solar aircraft that could fly for months like a satellite was developed step by step. Pathfinder-Plus was the… Read more Planes icaré 2 – The Solar Glider from Stuttgart A glider is already the most efficient aircraft there is, so what happens when you add solar cells? The aerospace engineers at… Read more Planes Solar Impulse 1 – The Prototype That Flew Through the Night Everyone remembers Solar Impulse 2 and its flight around the world. But the adventure started with a prototype: Solar Impulse 1, registration… Read more Planes Solair I – Germany’s Solar Aircraft Pioneer In the early 1980s, when solar cells were still rare and expensive, German designer Günther Rochelt decided to build an aircraft that… Read more Planes Gossamer Penguin – Pioneer of Piloted Solar Flight Before Solar Impulse, before Helios, there was a fragile-looking craft of tubes, foil and solar cells. Gossamer Penguin was built by Paul… Read more Planes Sunseeker II – First Solar Plane Across the Alps Long before Solar Impulse, one man was quietly flying solar planes he had built himself. Eric Raymond, a hang-gliding pioneer from California,… Read more Planes NASA Helios – The Solar Wing That Flew to 29 km Picture a wing longer than a jumbo jet's, as thin as a surfboard, covered in solar cells and driven by fourteen small… Read more Planes Ingenuity – The Solar-Charged Helicopter That Flew on Mars The smallest solar vehicle on our site may also be the most famous. Ingenuity was a helicopter of about 1.8 kg that… Read more Planes SolarStratos – Climbing Toward the Stratosphere on Sunlight Raphaël Domjan already made history once, as the initiator of PlanetSolar, the first boat to circle the world on solar power. His… Read more Planes NASA Centurion – The 63-Metre Step Between Pathfinder and Helios On our site you can already read about two NASA solar wings: Pathfinder-Plus, which flew to 80,201 feet, and Helios, which reached… Read more Planes Elektra One Solar – A Light Aircraft with Solar Wings Most solar aircraft on our site are giant experimental wings like Helios or Solar Impulse. The Elektra One is different: a small,… Read more Planes Solar Riser – The First Human Flight on Solar Power (1979) Every big story starts small. Long before Solar Impulse 2 flew around the world, a man in California flew half a mile… Read more Planes Solar Impulse 2 – Flying Around the World on Sunlight A revolutionary step in solar-powered aviation, Solar Impulse 2 (HB-SIB) represents the perfect balance between lightweight design, advanced batteries, and clean solar… Read more