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Solar Impulse makes Rocky flight to Oklahoma

Image: Solar Impulse in Oklahoma
The Solar Impulse 2 plane lands in Tulsa, Okla.,, after an 18-hour flight. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

After crossing the Himalayas and the Pacific, the fuel-free Solar Impulse 2 plane overcame the Rockies on May 12 during the Arizona-to-Oklahoma leg of its round-the-world odyssey.

“As you can imagine, flying over the Rocky Mountains is a challenge for an aircraft like Si2,” the Solar Impulse team said in a blog post. “But perhaps not for the reasons you would expect.”

The altitude wasn’t the biggest concern, although pilot Bertrand Piccard used an oxygen mask to cope with altitudes ranging up to 22,000 feet. Rather, it was the weather. Solar Impulse 2 is designed to soak up enough sunlight during the day to keep flying during the night, but it doesn’t do well during cloudy and stormy weather. That’s just the sort of weather that tends to build up during this time of year in the Rockies.

May 12 provided a window of opportunity for Piccard to make his way over the mountains in northern New Mexico and head eastward. Until this week, the plan was to stop over in Kansas City, Mo., but the Solar Impulse team said “we had to find a different solution” due to difficult weather conditions over the Kansas plains. So Piccard targeted Oklahoma’s Tulsa International Airport instead.

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Seattle firm creates showcase for … Airbus?

Image: Airbus Experience Center
Visitors can take the controls in the interactive Briefing Room at the Airbus Experience Center in Washington, D.C., which was designed by a Seattle-based firm. (Credit: Hornall Anderson)

Captain Kirk from the original “Star Trek” is celebrating Star Wars Day today, so maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising that a Seattle-based branding and design firm helped create the Airbus Group’s state-of-the-art Experience Center in the nation’s capital.

Hornall Anderson is behind the look of the exhibit space, which takes up about half of the 20,000-square-foot Airbus office space that opened last month on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Experience Center’s videos and interactive displays highlight facets of the Europe-based consortium’s operations in the United States and worldwide.

“You’ll see our Rosetta spacecraft that landed on a comet,” Airbus Group Chairman and CEO Allan McArtor said in a news release. “You’ll see the Perlan II glider that is going to ride wind currents into the stratosphere. You’ll see U.S. Army helicopters that are built in Mississippi, and A320 single-aisle aircraft being built in Alabama.”

A design company based in Seattle may seem an unusual choice for Airbus, considering that the Boeing Co. is building rival 737 jets down the road in Renton. There are Boeing-centric “experience centers” in Renton and other locales. But Airbus decided that Hornall Anderson, which recently did the rebranding for Seattle-based, all-Boeing Alaska Airlines, was the right firm for the job.

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Solar Impulse hops from California to Arizona

Image: Solar Impulse
The Solar Impulse 2 plane comes in for a landing in Phoenix like a UFO. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

A solar-powered ultralight airplane called Solar Impulse 2 landed in Phoenix tonight after a nearly 16-hour flight from California’s Silicon Valley, finishing up another leg of its environmentally friendly round-the-world odyssey.

The odyssey has been proceeding for more than a year, with occasionally lengthy stopovers. But making time is not the point: If Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg wanted to get to Phoenix quickly, he could have taken a commercial jet flight from San Jose in less than two hours.

Instead, Borschberg lifted off from Moffett Airfield, near San Francisco, at 5:03 a.m. PT. He landed at Phoenix Goodyear Airport at 8:55 p.m. PT (MST) amid gusty winds. The plane was quickly brought inside its hangar for protection.

“It’s more difficult to handle the airplane on the ground than in flight,” Borschberg said jokingly to the crowd that turned out to greet him at the airport. “That’s the reason why we stay so long up there.”

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Jet engines join the ‘Internet of Things’

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Rolls-Royce’s Trent XWB jet engine is prepared for delivery. (Credit: Rolls-Royce)

Soon the “Internet of Things” will be keeping watch on jet engines, refrigerators and freezers, factory floors and more, thanks to a series of partnerships announced by Microsoft at the Hannover Messe industrial fair in Germany.

The applications will take advantage of the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite to gather data from industrial products, and the Cortana Intelligence Suite to look for trends and figure out how to improve performance.

For example, Rolls-Royce will incorporate those software tools into its TotalCare maintenance services for its aircraft engines. The data sets will include engine health readings, air traffic control information, route restrictions and fuel usage.

Cortana will look for anomalies and trends in the data, and provide feedback that should help Rolls-Royce improve the engines’ performance and increase fuel efficiency.

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Round-the-world solar plane lands in California

Image: Solar Impulse 2 plane and Golden Gate Bridge
Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

Two and a half days after setting out from Hawaii, pilot Bertrand Piccard made a picture-postcard arrival in California tonight aboard the fuel-free Solar Impulse 2 airplane.

“Thank you for your welcome!” he told well-wishers who gathered at Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, Calif.

The landing at 11:45 p.m. PT was marked by a bit of turbulence, but nothing Piccard couldn’t handle. “The touchdown is a little bit stronger than I would have expected,” he acknowledged.

This week’s 2,400-mile nonstop trek was the second-longest leg of what’s expected to be a 22,000-mile round-the-world flight, the first ever done with a solar-powered aircraft.

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Solar Impulse is back on round-the-world trek

Image: Solar Impulse departure
Solar Impulse CEO Andre Borschberg flashes a thumbs-up as the Solar Impulse 2 airplane, piloted by Bertrand Piccard, rises from its runway in Hawaii. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

More than a year after its odyssey began, the Solar Impulse 2 airplane resumed its round-the-world, solar-powered trip in Hawaii today.

The ultra-lightweight plane took off at 6:18 a.m. Hawaii time (9:18 a.m. PT).

Solar Impulse began the trek in March 2015, taking off from Abu Dhabi and making stopovers in Oman, India, Myanmar, China and Japan. It got as far as Hawaii last July.

That five-day, five-night nonstop flight across the Pacific to Hawaii took a heavy toll on the plane’s batteries. The system overheated, and it took several months to make the repairs. The team also had to wait for reliably good weather to return.

Now the $150 million project has gotten off the ground again.

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Solar Impulse gets set to return to the air

Image: Solar Impulse 2
The Solar Impulse 2 airplane is ready to fly from Hawaii to California. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

More than a year after the odyssey began, the Swiss-led Solar Impulse project is ready to resume its round-the-world, solar-powered airplane flight in Hawaii on April 21.

Takeoff is set for 3 p.m. GMT (8 a.m. PT, 5 a.m. Hawaii time), the team tweeted.

The ultra-lightweight Solar Impulse 2 airplane started out on its trek from Abu Dhabi in March 2015, made stopovers in Oman, India, Myanmar, China and Japan, and got as far as Hawaii last July.

The five-day, five-night nonstop flight across the Pacific to Hawaii took a heavy toll on the plane’s batteries, however. The system overheated, and it took several months to make the repairs. The team also had to wait for reliably good weather to return.

This week, the leaders of the $150 million effort said it was finally time to fly.

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Report calls for drone crash-test dummies

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Photographer Chase Jarvis with a drone at Gas Works Park in Seattle.

Drones should face the equivalent of crash-test dummies to gauge how safe they are for flying around people, a panel appointed by the Federal Aviation Administration said in a report released today.

The recommendations from the Micro UAS Aviation Rulemaking Committee laid out a wide range of conditions for letting drones, also known as unmanned aircraft systems, fly close to the uninvolved public. Such flights are not allowed under a different set of regulations that are due for release within the next few months.

The committee, which includes industry representatives and other stakeholders, finished its report in less than a month. “We commend the committee members for their sincere dedication and for producing a comprehensive report in such a short time,” FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement.

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Alaska Air is buying Virgin America for $2.6B

Virgin America and Alaska Airlines jet tails
Virgin America and Alaska Air Group confirmed their merger plans. (Credit: Alaska Air)

Alaska Air Group confirmed reaching a $2.6 billion deal to buy Virgin America after a bidding war with JetBlue Airways.

“This was a hard-fought competition, and we were very happy to come away as the successful bidder,” Alaska Air CEO Brad Tilden told reporters today.

Virgin America President and CEO David Kush said he was also pleased with the deal. “The price paid is a big win for our shareholders,” he said.

The deal involves a cash purchase of Virgin America’s shares at $57 each, which is a 47 percent premium over Friday’s closing price. The merger was approved by the boards of both airlines, but still must face U.S. regulatory approval. That’s expected to be worked out by the end of the year.

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Alaska Air closes in on Virgin America deal

Image: Alaska Airlines jet
A smiling Eskimo graces the tail of an Alaska Airlines jet. (Credit: Alaska Air)

Seattle-based Alaska Air Group is close to a $2 billion deal to purchase Virgin America, beating out a rival bid from Jet Blue Airways, The Wall Street Journal reported April 2.

The Journal’s report was based on information from unnamed sources said to be familiar with the matter. Those sources stressed that there was no guarantee Alaska would clinch the deal. An announcement could come as early as April 4, they told the Journal.

U.S.-based Virgin America is separate from Virgin Atlantic, a larger airline owned by British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Branson’s holding company owns less than 25 percent of Virgin America, in accordance with federal law. Cyrus Aviation Holdings is the largest investor with about 28 percent of the voting stock.

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