Solar Impulse Round-the-World Flight

Solar Impulse, based in Switzerland, has begun a round-the-world flight in a solar-powered aircraft, and they won’t be using a drop of fuel!



The engineering team at Solar Impulse and our mutual partner AeroFEM used Femap with NX Nastran to model, optimize and verify the metal and composite structure of the plane making it as light and efficient as possible. The circumnavigation which began in Abu Dhabi, today, will take approximately five-months, and span 35,000 km (22,000 miles).

We wish them good luck, and encourage you to follow these amazing entrepreneurs on their historic mission.

Read the Solar Impulse case study, and if you have a few minutes, check out some of the footage on YouTube, or follow them on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter @solarimpulse.

Great stuff!