Well this is off topic, but the cost of doing a 175 conversion is high. If you're talking about visiting Fairbanks this is mostly because Dave S supplies brand new Cessna parts in his kit. If you're talking about visiting Porterville then it's because Harry D (RIP) was a crafty old coot of a businessman and needed to pay for a lot of big machinery and the room to operate it
You can stick solar panels on anything, but they're probably best suited for something more glider-ish.
And cheap too... At least compared to a satellite. You guys are concentrating on the cost of the airframe but that's not necessarily what most of the money in a homebuilt airplane budget goes to. The engine and electronics can be much more if you aren't careful. If all you want to do is fly around your local area at low speed and altitude (say less than 5,000ft and 70 mph) in good whether, during the day, you can have a minimal instrument cluster. Higher altitude and higher speed requires more power which can get expencive fast. Getting good climb performance on low power requires low induced drag which only comes from low span loading. Low aspect ratio means that you'll need more power for a given rate of climb thus bigger more expensive engine.A large area plank, with enough wing area to have usable solar panels on it... what a great idea !
Even more so if you can get the government to pay for a big hunk of the cost and give you a contracted kwh buyback rateExactly!
As I wrote before...
"... best and cheapest position for solar panels is roof of hangar."
What do you think about "e-soaring"?
Good job :-) And very good empty weight. I asume that 115 kg is with some light combustion engine or with electric propulsion (probably without batteries). So to keep MTOM under 300 kg with "normal" pilot arround 100 kg you can still use 70-80 kg battery. Nice :-)www.homebuiltairplanes.com
I have been looking for a flex panel and you are right, my 12V , 9 amp battery needs to be charged at a lower rate if ran direct without a charge controller. I have a couple of charge controllers that I can use.
If you look at how a panel is made, a lot of the weight is the plastic backing of the panel, the actual sensitive stuff is very thin. I always wondered 2 things: if a panel can actually replace the fabric/skin of the wing, offsetting some the weight, or if somehow you could order that thin sensitive layer and laminate it with carbon or something, again to have something structural and light sensitive. I also wonder if you can kind of slice the back of a panel to save some weight if you cannot get the raw film from the factory
If the wing skin is made of something transparent, then you can just lay the panels in between the ribs. Since they would be enclosed, the panels wouldn't have to be structurally strong.If you look at how a panel is made, a lot of the weight is the plastic backing of the panel, the actual sensitive stuff is very thin. I always wondered 2 things: if a panel can actually replace the fabric/skin of the wing, offsetting some the weight, or if somehow you could order that thin sensitive layer and laminate it with carbon or something, again to have something structural and light sensitive. I also wonder if you can kind of slice the back of a panel to save some weight if you cannot get the raw film from the factory
Apparently, Sunpower have some factory in France but they are very much a global company and got factories all over the world...
