"Bret Cahill" wrote in message
oups.com...
It's surprising there aren't more solar powered blimps for tours of
canyons. The forest service could use them to count big horn sheep and
other lildlife. If the weather was fair, wouldn't you like to take a
quiet ride in an airship? Maybe sneak up on a mule deer . . .

There's no question conventional PV would get a blimp going over 25
mph.

There is considerable question (in my mind at least) that conventional PV
could get a blimp going at that speed, you are talking several hundred HP yes?
How many square yards of PV would that take? Remember that only a portion of
the cells would be receiving full sunlight, so multiply the PV area you need by
at least two. Remember that PV cells have significant weight, would the thing
fly?

Boeing's new 40% efficient PV would move an airship at 30 - 35
mph.

There is a little problem here, you would need to figure out how to place a
giant lense over your blimp. Those are concentrating solar cells. From the
article: "Using concentrated sunlight, Spectrolab demonstrated the ability of a
photovoltaic cell to convert 40.7 percent of the sun's energy into electricity."

Vaughn




The first PV airship should be named the "Pronghorn."


Bret Cahill