The re-chargeable cells can have the option of acquiring inflight solar power
Theoretically possible but the time available will be very less and thrust to weight ration will be very less.
Actually aircrafts need a T/W OF 0.25 TO 0.3, launch vehicles from 1.3 to 1.7 and missiles from 1.6 to 2.0. I had asked this question mainly to get a view of how much solar or battery power can be compactly generated, The best way to understand is add a typical Boeing 737 engine weights including fuel weight and its power and is to be compared with state of art re-chargeable batteries power capacity for the same weight. This will give the gap or extent of inadequacy in the batteries. Then an attempt can be made on lighter aircrafts close to glide mode and see if it will work. Later as technology will possibly develop better versions can be designed.
Fighter air crafts do have high T/W because they have to perform very hard maneuvers demanding more thrust. and high speeds, but passenger planes or low like the values I mentioned.For all I know my question could be very impractical as it is a far fetched dream.
Dear Sir,
To my knowledge, fuel cell/Li-battery powered small crafts like HK 36 Super Dimona were already demonstrated
http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/How-Things-Work-Flying-Fuel-Cells.html
Also, in November 2008, Adaptive Materials and the University of Michigan achieved a record-breaking unmanned aircraft flight. Their fuel cell powered plane, named Endurance flew for 10 hours, 15 minutes and 4 seconds in a flight that lasted from sunrise to sunset on Oct. 30 2008.
Senthil:- If fuel -battery cells have an index of power to weight ratio say for the proven unmanned flight , we should know these values and also the practical values of achieving higher power to weight ratios ratios, so that the unmanned becomes manned, Coupled with the state of art light weight materials, it may be possible to achieve a limited seat aircraft which I think will perhaps be the cleanest and relatively safest aircraft
The DLR in Germany has successfully flown an H2 PEM fuel cell powered manned aircraft but other than in automotive applications (where the batteries primary function is to store regenerated energy) it makes little sense to store electrical energy in batteries for aeronautical use due to the unbeneficial power to weight ratio of even the most advanced battery technologies. If you want to go for solar as an energy source you will need significant surface area but not because of the power to weight ratio but the power density of photovoltaic systems.
Achim :-
You are practically correct, but still dreams one day may be a possibility.
Agreed, dreams are often the source of innovation....but I thought your question was "is it possible with State of the Art ..." so I thought a practical answer was what you were looking for :)
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