First Electric/Solar Aircraft To Fly Over The Alps In Both Directions

Elektra One Solar from the German company PC-Aero  has become the first solar/electric aircraft to successfully overfly the alps in both directions.

The flight started in Unterwössen, Germany on June 25 for the Alps crossing over the Grossglockner and landed in the sunny town of Lienz in East Tyrol in Austria. The flight took around 2.5 hours.

After the successful flight on the south side of the Alps, Elektra One Solar started on the way back on July 2 ... a few days before the e-Genius of the University of Stuttgart also flew over the alps in quite difficult weather conditions. Despite headwinds and strong gusts the plane crossed the Alps at an altitude of more than 3000 m and landed after about 2 hours and 190 kilometers flight as planned at the airfield in Zell am See, Austria.

The emission and noise free flight was possible using 280 solar cells applied on the wing surface of the ultralight airplane and a 11.5 kWh battery package.

The series production solar cells from the Solar World company in Germany provided about 30% of the needed energy. The maximum actual range of the aircraft is about 500 km.

A special high resolution camera for 3D landscape mapping (up to 5 cm resolution) was installed on board. The system was developed by the partner company Elektra UAS GmbH. "We need not reinvent the aircraft for a clean mobility, we need only integrate and optimize existing technologies," says PC-Aero and Elektra UAS CEO Calin Gologan.

(Images provided by PC-Aero)

FMI: www.pc-aero.de