COMMENT
flightglobal.com 17-23 March 2015 | Flight International | 5
Solar Impulse’s global challenge
I
n this age of intercontinental travel, the setting of avi-
ation records may seem like a throwback to a bygone
era. But there remain boundaries to push, and Solar
Impulse’s bid to set new endurance standards for solar
powered, no-fuel flying is impressive and important.
Impressive because to build a 747-sized aircraft with
the mass of a family car capable of flying day and night
on the power of a motor scooter requires a new state-of-
the-art in design, materials, power management and
avionics, not to mention pilot fitness.
Important because achieving all those things shows
that the “impossible” is possible with existing technol-
ogies. For André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, that
“impossible” is not flying round-the-world in a solaraircraft – it is the dramatic reduction in energy con-
sumption needed to prevent runaway climate change.
Their message, to be repeated to anyone who will
listen at every stop on their journey, is to ditch the
fatalistic assumption that only a return to Stone Age
lifestyles can avert cataclysmic global warming. Here,
they are saying, in this magnificent aircraft, is the proof.
But can Solar Impulse realistically hope to inspire
“concrete action toward a clean future”? We should all
hope so – although it is entirely possible that many
people will compare their own lifestyle options with
such a fragile, expensive and impractical machine,
however impressive, and remain mired in fatalism. ■
See News Focus PNo time for sleeping
It was optimism all round at the air transport traders’ annual get-together in Phoenix, but
galloping production rates, low oil prices and political instability will be keeping some awakeN
ot until the very last panel of the ISTAT conference
did someone in the audience ask the one question
that had been hovering over the event for two days.
Until that moment, attendees had heard much about
a commercial aircraft industry that is mostly in a great
shape, with record backlogs, surging traffic growth,
improving aircraft values and no analytic reason to
think it will change course soon. So, regardless of all
the good news, the anonymous questioner asked, what
is keeping the panellists awake at night?
On the stage were the captains of the aircraft leasing
community, who gather with aircraft traders, financiers
and manufacturers in a plush resort hotel on the out-
skirts of eternally sunny Phoenix, Arizona for an an-
nual dialogue on the state of the air transport industry.
Most years, the public conversation covers a wide
variety of financial issues, but also focuses on the kind
of overriding, capital-T “Topics” that tend to rattle thepsyches of the people who trade in aircraft worth tens
of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars.
For an industry that has experienced an
unprecedented 11 years of steady growth, it had always
been easy to find something that everyone attending
agreed to worry about. Several years ago it was how the
industry would cope with the global financial crisis,
but then it did. Then the worry was over where the
capital would come from to pay for all those aircraft
being delivered with hefty financing packages, but
somehow the credit materialised. More recently, fearsfocused on talk of order bubbles and the declining
service lives of narrowbody aircraft.
While not everyone is resting at ease, the near-
absence of the phrase “order bubble” in the ISTAT
dialogue spoke volumes about its current relevance. So
what is keeping the aircraft trading community up at
night these days?
Digging deep into the remarks made over the two
days revealed a few worries. The price of oil should re-
main well below $100 per barrel for years to come, it
was said, unless a geopolitical crisis overwhelms mar-
ket forces. Russia’s recent actions in eastern Europe
suggest a “catastrophic” geopolitical event is now more
likely than ever, but that is still a remote possibility.
Airbus and Boeing are entering a potentially awkward
transition to a series of new and re-engined models, as
galloping production rates stoke fears of over-supply.
But these are all manageable problems. The industry
has every right to feel optimistic, and that seems to be
why some may be having trouble sleeping. ■The near-absence of the phrase
“order bubble” during the
ISTAT dialogue spoke volumes
Rex Features
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