Taking to the sky

The aspect of the flight of Solar Impulse that fascinated everybody was its simple two-phase schedule. First, during the day, the solar-powered aircraft would climb to 8,500 meters and then float around at that altitude for twelve hours, in order store a maximum quantity of the sun's energy. Then, as soon as the sun went down, the aircraft would descend to an altitude of 1,500 meters and fly around in the dark for the entire night, until its batteries were flat. To designate this second phase, many French observers borrowed the title of a famous novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline [1894-1961]: Journey to the End of the Night.



Meanwhile, 50 noisy passengers—described as rabbis and Jewish mystics—took to the sky in Israel with a noble goal: putting an end to the threat of the H1N1 flu virus.

Personally, I would put my money on the solar-powered aircraft rather than the prayer-chanting and shofar-blowing plane-load of kooks.