The Solar Blimp Takes To the Skies!
Filed Under: Environmental News on July 23, 2009
French engineers have built a helium blimp and wrapped the top of it in solar panels. The cells power the propellers that moves the blimp and makes it zero-emissions. The team plans to fly the zeppelin across the English Channel later this summer after flight testing.
Called Project Sol’R, the blimp is led by INSA Lyon and ESSEC Business School built the aluminum frame and then stretched a nylon-polythylene wrap over that. The whole blimp is 72 feet long and the cells generate up to 2.4 kilowatts.
The blimp was built by students of the engineering schools and took about a year and a half to complete. The Sol’R debuted at the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget in late June.
Interestingly, Lockheed Martin has been working on a solar-powered drone (unmanned) blimp for military reconnaissance use, but is not affiliated with this Sol’R project.
I wish the team the best of luck and can’t wait to find out how the flight over the Channel went!
