Our test pilot returns
Our test pilot, Miguel A. Iturmendi, is back in Payerne and his welcome return means that we can resume our 2021 training campaign!
The year is packed with prospects, but our primary objective is to prepare Raphaël Domjan to fly SolarStratos solo.
Live from the Mission Control Centre
In what is an exciting development, our team can now monitor SolarStratos live from a Mission Control Centre installed at the base in Payerne. The telemetry-based system was designed in what has been a very successful collaboration between partners, Switch Production SA, and our technical team, Alexis and Yvan.
The system allows us to monitor the data that the pilot sees in his cockpit, in real time. Data on engine power and control, battery charge and voltage, are now shared directly between the aircraft and the base. This is a mandatory and undeniably positive step forward in terms of the coordination and management of future medium and high-altitude flights.
It’s all in the details!
SolarStratos has been fitted with wheel hubcaps; they provide an improvement in terms of aerodynamics, and they look good!
Success at EXPLORiT
SolarStratos, and the simulator in particular, is causing quite a stir at the new EXPLORiT centre located at the heart of the Y-Parc in Yverdon-les-Bains, with crowds of visitors keen to experience solar flight.
Over the course of three evening events, Raphaël Domjan and the team have welcomed the PlanetSolar Foundation and SolarStratos partners, sharing with them the opportunity to discover the exhibition and to present, in preview, the film ‘The Birth of a Dream’.
