An event on April 3 was held in the Solarni Horizont workshop to show off what has been built so far of the new two seater.

The cockpit is well along, and the tailboom was also positioned where it will be mounted, with the motor pod and prop mocked up.

Roman Susnik was there with a motor housing for the new custom made 20 kw motor he is designing for this new solar powered two seater.

You can see more of Roman’s electric motors for aircraft at http://www.glider-one.si/

More pictures are on the news tab of the solar flight home page

The campaign to build the Solar Stemme fuselage enters its third week, with good progress.  The tail boom is 90% finished.  The halves are ready to join, in the molds.

                                                                                                              Here is the inner side, with peel ply still on.

The cockpit is 55% finished, with the honeycomb having gone in today. 

 We started molding the canopy frame, using high modulus uni-carbon to increase the stiffness.

One seat is finished, and the other 30%.  Each part needs to be cured under vacuum three days, to build up the sandwich stucture in three different cure cycles. 

The team here at the Allstar glider factory continues to lend expert assistance to this build, especialy our host Andrej Papiorek, who really is an expert at composite glider design.

First days of fuselage fabrication at the Allstar Glider factory, in southern Poland.

The first layer of light carbon fabric being cut for the outer skin of the tail boom and fin.

Cured outer skin, with spar caps visible.

Nomex honeycomb bonded in for the sandwich core.

The Icare designer Proffessor Voit Nitschmann agreed to the long term loan of the Icare molds for Solar Flight’s new airplane.

You can learn more about Icare at http://www.ifb.uni-stuttgart.de/index.php/forschung/flugzeugentwurf/icare

Also invoved in the planning and logistics were Len Schumann, Karl Kasser, and Micro Schulz, all Stuttgart alumni.

These molds will allow very high qulality wings to be molded at the lightest possible weight.  The molds are being readied for the 10 meter inner wing section, to be built in our new shop in Radovljica, Slovenia.

Only small changes will be needed to the SUNSEEKER III design, to take advantage of this opportunity.

Micro Schulz test flying Icare in 1996

As you can see from the picture, Icare has a beautiful 25 meter wing.  The Stuttgarter’s hope to have Icare flying next summer, and to stage a distance contest between SUNSEEKER II and Icare, probably in Germany.  Sponsors for this event are being sought.

 Proffesor Nitschmann’s design firm www.sfl-gmbh.de is very freindly to our project, and we hope to work togeather in the future on solar powered aircraft.

Alan Weston, program manager at NASA, has invited us to apply for NASA support to aid the ongoing development of sport solar powered airplanes.

Tom Edwards, Eric Raymond, and Alan Weston

Facilities at Ames include the world’s biggest wind tunnel.

Intake for wind tunnel

Throat section of wind tunnel

After owning a Stemme motor glider between 1999 and 2001, I settled on the S 10 fuselage for my two-seat configuration.

A series of meetings with Dr. Stemme has led to an agreement that will allow me to use the molds for this airplane.

The molds are in Poland at a subcontractor.

Some parts, such as the rudder pedals, can be used as-is.