Electric plane at Paris Airshow

On Tue, 14 Jul 2015 08:23:23 +1200, george152 wrote:

The current toy evidently 'cooked' a number of the onboard batteries
during its 'record breaking' Japan-Hawaii leg


Apparently the battery damage is worse than originally thought. I recall some
issues with the Li-ion batteries in early production Boeing Dreamliners and
Tesla cars. It's all part of the learning curve I suppose. I'm unaware of an
subsequent battery issues with those products.

Here's the latest update from Solar Impulse:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RTW update 23 - BREAKING NEWS - No #Si2 flights before 2016
From: Solar Impulse
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 11:13:11 +0000

SOLAR IMPULSE RTW UPDATE #23
------------------------------------------------------------

NO flight BEFORE 2016

IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE TO OVERHEATED BATTERIES IN SI2 PUSHES THE SECOND HALF OF
ROUND-THE-WORLD SOLAR FLIGHT TO EARLY SPRING 2016.

Despite the hard work of the team to repair the batteries which overheated in
the record breaking oceanic flight from Nagoya to Hawaii, Si2 will stay in
Hawaii until early Spring 2016.

During the first ascent on day one of the record-breaking oceanic flight from
Nagoya to Hawaii, the battery temperature increased too much due to over
insulation of the gondolas. And while the Mission team was monitoring this very
closely during the mission leg, there was no way to decrease the temperature
for the remaining duration of the flight as each daily cycle requires an ascend
to 28’000 feet and descend for energy management issues.

Irreversible damage to certain parts of the batteries will require repairs
which will last several months. In parallel, we will be studying various
options for better cooling and heating processes for very long flights.

The University of Hawaii with the support of the Department of Transportation
will host the airplane in its hanger at Kalaeloa airport. Post maintenance
check flights will start in 2016 to test the new battery heating and cooling
systems.