67yo Russian adventurer flies solar-powered plane prototype, eyes round-the-world voyage

Russian adventurer and record-breaker Fyodor Konyukhov is trying out a new prototype solar-powered plane, flying it from Moscow to Crimea. The flight is in preparation for a potential round-the-world trip.

Konyukhov, along with the president of the Russian Glider Sport Federation, Sergey Ryabchinskiy, set off for the test flight early Friday morning. The aircraft made two scheduled stops along the way and is expected to get to its destination tomorrow.

While the flight was originally expected to be completed within a day, it was a bit disrupted by “Rostov hospitality,” the press secretary and son of the adventurer, Oskar Konyukhov, told RT. The pilots spent two hours in Rostov-on-Don instead of the scheduled brief stop and ultimately decided to stay for the night in the town of Temryuk.

The plane, called the Flying Lab, boasts an impressive wingspan of 25 meters, while weighing only 900kg. It relies on a single electric engine for propulsion, with solar panels on its wing and body, as well as internal accumulators designed to save power for overcast weather and night flights.

“The plane has fared really well. Its speed was around 200-220 kph, the flight was very comfortable,” Konyukhov said.

The test flight comes in preparation for another expedition by the adventurer – he plans to fly around the world in a solar-powered plane. The ambitious voyage is expected to take place in 2021. The goal of the current flight is to test the electric engines and solar panels, observing their performance at various altitudes and latitudes.

The plane for this expedition, the Albatross, is expected to be able to circumnavigate the globe just in a week without any stops. The aircraft is being built with the support of Russian high-tech corporation ROTEC and subsidiaries.

So far, a solar-powered aircraft has flown around the globe only once – the Swiss plane Solar Impulse 2, piloted by Bertrand Piccard, did so in 2015-2016. The trip required multiple stops along the way and took a whopping 500 days due to technical issues and breakdowns. Despite the difficulties, the Solar Impulse 2 set the world record for endurance among solar-powered machines.

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