Performing the first fully solar-powered and autonomous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean with an aircraft is a tremendous and intriguing endeavor. In the last months, the team has made significant progress towards achieving that goal, however, some challenges remain. Energy consumption optimization and retrieval of a definite flight permission are still critical factors, and recent flight tests have shown that robust autopilot-based stabilization of the aircrafts – given the significant wind gusts of up to 60km/h that MeteoSuisse is reporting – need further verification. We're on a good track in solving these issues. However, more time is needed, and it was thus decided to extend the project – i.e. to perform an intermediate step this summer – and to then perform the final Atlantic Crossing in 2015 instead of this year.

This intermediate step will serve to extensively put the AtlantikSolar aircrafts through their paces by performing long-endurance reliability flight testing within the AtlantikSolar project and additionally within two European research projects. The joint testing will culminate in the two major flight demonstrations with the AtlantikSolar UAVs in summer 2014, namely:

Demonstration Flight #1 – 24h+ flight
A day and night flight test (June 2014) aiming to prove the ultra-long endurance flight capability and to tie the previous solar-powered flight record at ETH Zurich, i.e. the 27h flight by ASL's SkySailor in 2008.
Demonstration Flight #2 – 48h+ flight
The major endurance test (July 2014) for the Atlantic Crossing. The successful completion of this test would also mean a new record for autonomous solar-powered flight in the 5m category!

We’ll also take the chance to organize public outreach events during the above flights, so there’ll be the chance to actively see the aircrafts in action on the field! And already now, we have a solidly flying AtlantikSolar prototype, with two additional AtlantikSolar aircrafts coming out of production soon. After all the preparation in the last month, this prototype will by the way perform its very first autopilot-controlled flight next week, which will set us up for the longer-duration demonstration flights this summer! Stay tuned for further updates!