Talk:Solar-Powered Aircraft Developments Solar One

This article
This article is under discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft. - Ahunt (talk) 12:54, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The discussion has been completed, article renamed, text expanded, fully referenced and unreferenced text removed. - Ahunt (talk) 14:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Solar One is not at London Museum
Hello

This is the Museum of London contributing. The 'London Museum' no longer exists (and did not exist when Solar One was developed), but the link for this reference is broken, so we cannot check the source - might it have said 'a London museum'? The London Museum's collections came to the Museum of London but Solar One is not amongst them.

We'd therefore be grateful if you could please remove the two references to 'London Museum'.

Best Enquiry Administrator Museum of London — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.221.0.68 (talk) 15:14, 14 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks ✅. - Ahunt (talk) 15:21, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Photo does not depict "Solar One", but "Solair One"
Your photo shows a different airplane. It's the "Solair I", developed by Günther Rochelt in Germany in 1983. The craft is now exhibited in the Deutsches Museum in Munich where your picture was taken. "Solar One", developed by David Williams in 1979, didn't display a canard configuration, but was unique in carrying the motor in a small nacelle above the nose of the fuselage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:43:EF0A:CB77:8DE1:D815:5F5A:37FD (talk) 09:38, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

This has been confirmed to me this evening by Barry Jacobson, who was a member of the SolarONE team (and the Pheonix). He has given me a photo of the first short hop flight that took place on 19 December 1978, but unfortunately he, like Fred To, wasn't present at that flight so he didn't take the photo, nor know who did. As such I can't upload it here as I don't know who the real photographer (and copyright holder).

GreenJimll (talk) 19:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Solar One was the very first manned solar powered aircraft to fly
As the article mentions, Solar One flew on the 19th of December 1978. This was before Larry Mauro's Solar Riser flew on the 29th of April 1979, so theoretically, Solar One is the very first manned solar-powered aircraft to fly (it is also the first manned electric aircraft to fly). The confusion comes from the fact that Solar One's flight was not announced until after Mr. Mauro claimed to have flown the first flight. Official observers were present on the day of Solar One's first flight on the 19th of December 1978 and an official letter from the Royal Aero Club describing the flight was written on the 11th of May 1979. Part of this letter can be seen in the book "Pionniers et aventuriers de l'énergie solaire"


 * According to Jane's 1980-81 the 1978 attempt achieved a "short hop". Actual flight did not take place for another six months. This is consistent with the main body of the article. I have corrected the lead section accordingly. If the letter really does contradict this, then it would be helpful to see a transcript posted here. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:56, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

The letter from the Royal Aero Club reads "The wing tip was held level for take-off. After a short run of 25 yards or so the aircraft lifted off and flew about 2 ft. above the ground for a few seconds.". So are a few seconds considered a flight or a hop? A question of quite historical significance. This short flight should at least be mentioned in my opinion, because 2 dates continue to find their way in articles (19 December 1978 and 13 June 1979). In the book mentioned above, The 13th of June flight was arranged for the press. The Solar One documentary or the History of Solar Flight by André Noth does not seem to talk of a small hop.

I can write down the full transcript if it is of interest. Realdriver (talk) 12:57, 24 February 2020 (UTC)


 * There is probably no universally accepted definition of a powered flight. The issue is briefly discussed in the article on claims to the first powered flight, which references a fuller discussion by Charles Gibbs-Smith. That discussion is unfortunately offline at the moment, but copy-pasting the page urls into the Wayback Machine will likely work. Broadly speaking, flight must be sustained for a significant fraction of a kilometer. A hop of "a few seconds" has never before been recognised as a demonstration of sustained flight, so there is no reason to do so now unless exceptional evidence can be produced. If the rest of the transcript does contain such evidence, then I'd love to see it, otherwise it is probably not worth the bother of posting here. The hop is already covered in the main text, I do not think it significant enough to bear repeating in the lead. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:57, 24 February 2020 (UTC)