Sunrise Photo History Sunrise I at 3000 feet above Fort Irwin California

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Loraine Harrington
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Sunrise Photo History Sunrise I at 3000 feet above Fort Irwin California Sunrise I on its historic flight, November 4, 1974 soars above California powered by 1,872 Solar Cells on its wings, solar

1 Sunrise Photo History Sunrise I at 3000 feet above Fort Irwin California Sunrise I on its historic flight, November 4, 1974 soars above California powered by 1,872 Solar Cells on its wings, solar power alone no batteries required. The age of Solar Flight had arrived. Streamers on left wing tip were Mylar strips torn from wing under surface when Sunrise momentarily exceed speed envelope due to strong winds and oil canning of thin Mylar covering probably occurred. The weather was not our friend that gusty autumn.

2 Sunrise I-A at Fort Irwin California Sunrise I-A with new deeper fuselage and now equipped with a wheel landing gear instead of skid, being carried out to the launch site by Dan Lott of Lockheed on the left wing and designer and builder Roland Boucher of Astro Flight on right wing.

3 Sunrise I ready for Historic Flight Roland Boucher checks solar flux, notice cloudy conditions not ideal for solar flying, also notice the 1.5 pounds of lead weight on the nose to balance out the overweight solar panels built with the 5 mm round Heliotek (now Spectrolab) solar cells.

4 Roland Boucher Controlling Sunrise I Roland Boucher on the right controls Sunrise on its historic first flight at Camp Irwin California. Ground station Telemetry data displayed on the green instrument panel allows the pilot to fly aircraft out of sight, but there was no ground radar tracking to allow this at Camp Irwin. All flights were VFR. Dan Lott the Solar Cell consultant from Lockheed on the left and a Lockheed Photographer in the center.

5 Sunrise I dancing with the clouds Sunrise I at 3000 feet above Bicycle Lake, California

Sunrise II ready for its high altitude flight Sept 27, 1975 Sunrise II had a number of improvements over Sunrise I, these were higher efficiency solar panels now located on center wing sections only,

6 Sunrise II ready for its high altitude flight Sept 27, 1975 Sunrise II had a number of improvements over Sunrise I, these were higher efficiency solar panels now located on center wing sections only, a larger vertical stabilizer to reduce heading wander at low flight speeds, and a single Astro Cobalt 40 motor replaced the two Ferrite 25 motors on Sunrise I. The wing chord was increased from 30 inches to 36 inches to accommodate the new Solar panels. The new 2x4 cm Cells supplied by Spectro Lab had an average efficiency of 14% and now delivered 570 watts vs the previous 450 watts of the earlier 5 mm round cells. Every cell was tested for output and cells of equal output were assembled into strings. This job took Bob Boucher, Margret Jewett and her two lady assistants about two months to fabricate the panels.

7 Sunrise II ready to be launched on its High Altitude Flight Sunrise is ready for launch on Sept 27, 1975 on a dry lake near Mercury Nevada. Stan Hall and Dan Lott of Lockheed steady the wings while Bob Imresek holds the tail and Bob Boucher runs back the control station. That day Sunrise attained an altitude of 17,200 feet 3 ½ hours after launch.

8 Launch of Sunrise II Launching of Sunrise II was assisted by Stan Hall on the right wing and Dan Lott of Lockheed on the left wing, that day Sunrise II would climb to 17,200 feet altitude ASL.

9 Sunrise II shortly after Launch Dan Lott of Lockheed observes Sunrise II climbing out with the sun to her back. Dan is expert on solar arrays and was our consultant when building the solar panels on both Sunrise I and Sunrise II.

10 Sunrise Ground Control Station Bob Boucher stands while Stan Hall observes and Bob Imresek an Astro copilot controls Sunrise II above the desert at Mercury Nevada. The two Bobs took turns piloting the airplane.

Sunrise II Crosses the Moon at 6,000 Feet On September 27, 1975 Sunrise II made the world s first high altitude solar flight reaching almost 17,200 feet ASL over our test base in Mercury Nevada under

11 Sunrise II Crosses the Moon at 6,000 Feet On September 27, 1975 Sunrise II made the world s first high altitude solar flight reaching almost 17,200 feet ASL over our test base in Mercury Nevada under radar vectoring by Nellis Air Force Base. Bob Boucher, designer and builder was piloting at the ground control station as Sunrise II at about 6,000 feet altitude passes by the moon and over his head.

12 Radar Plot of high Altitude Flight

Construction Photos One Fifth Size Scale Model of Sunrise I The 1/5 scale model Built by Roland Boucher was used to verify Sunrise performance at altitude.

13 Construction Photos One Fifth Size Scale Model of Sunrise I The 1/5 scale model Built by Roland Boucher was used to verify Sunrise performance at altitude. At 75,000 feet ASL the Reynolds Number would be 1/5 that at sea level. They took the model to one of the Blimp hangars in Orange County for testing. Bob Boucher volunteered to climb up in the rafters about 100 feet above the hangar floor, lower a string and pull up the model, then release it. Roland then piloted it down to the floor by radio control. These tests confirmed previous performance calculations for the lower Reynolds Number that would be encountered during a high altitude flight.

14 Sunrise I-A ready for its first test flight under battery power Sunrise 1A ready to go at Fort Irwin California. The flight was beautiful in the early morning desert air that morning, Stall tests showed almost immediate hand off recovery. To verify that the aircraft would have enough power to reach high altitudes, the aircraft was commanded to climb under power for one minute, then to glide with power off until it had descended to about 100 feet above the desert, then climb for one minute repeated. This cycle was repeated until the NiCad battery ran down. Sunrise I could glide for 8 minutes for every minute of powered climb. Therefore it had eight times the power required for level flight; so it should have a service ceiling of about 75,000 feet. On its first landing the skid dug in and caused the fuselage to buckle just behind the Pylon. A new deeper fuselage with no pylon and a landing wheel was built for the next flight.

Sunrise 1 B ready for world s first Solar Powered Flight Notice no wing pylon and deeper fuselage for more strength, Single wheel landing gear replaces skid, and wing mounted solar

15 Sunrise 1 B ready for world s first Solar Powered Flight Notice no wing pylon and deeper fuselage for more strength, Single wheel landing gear replaces skid, and wing mounted solar panels installed for the world s first solar powered flight on November 4, The 1,872 five millimeter diameter solar cells refused to stay stuck down to the wing and added a bit of drag.

Twin Astro 25 ferrite motors driving the 30 inch prop. The original Sunrise I fuselage with twin geared Astro 25 ferrite motors driving a 30x16 wooden prop.

16 Twin Astro 25 ferrite motors driving the 30 inch prop. The original Sunrise I fuselage with twin geared Astro 25 ferrite motors driving a 30x16 wooden prop. The NiCad battery packs for the early test flights seen in the white plastic cases about a foot behind the motors. All early flights were made under battery power to prove the airframe before the expensive Solar panels were installed.

Airborne Radio Control Components Shown above left to right are: one of the servo actuators, the S&O radio receiver, and the two Lithium primary batteries that power the radio control and telemetry

17 Airborne Radio Control Components Shown above left to right are: one of the servo actuators, the S&O radio receiver, and the two Lithium primary batteries that power the radio control and telemetry systems. Control functions were rudder, elevator, motor on-off, Solar Array series-parallel, booster battery in-out, and booster battery jettison. The same control system used on Sunrise I were reused on Sunrise II

18 Airborne Telemetry Encoder and RF Transmitter Airborne RF transmitter on is on the right and seven channel telemetry encoder unit is center. The quantities were measured by on board sensors, these were: true air speed, propeller Rpm, motor voltage, motor current, electronic compartment temperature, two null indicators of sun position, sun left-right and sun to-from. These units were designed and built by Jim Oddino of the S and O Radio Company. These same units used on Sunrise I were modified and reused on Sunrise II.

The 53 MHz up link and 72 MHz Down link Antennas Both up link and down link antennas are shown with David Hauler (right) and designer Roland Boucher (left).

19 The 53 MHz up link and 72 MHz Down link Antennas Both up link and down link antennas are shown with David Hauler (right) and designer Roland Boucher (left). These two antennas used on the Sunrise I program were then reused on the Sunrise II program. They were supplied by the Hy-Gain Electronics Corp. of Lincoln Nebraska.

20 Command Radio Frequency Up Link The S&O radio supplied the 750 mw R/C transmitter on the left. The EIN Company of Rochester NY supplied the ten watt Radio Frequency amplifier in the center. The same command and control units used on Sunrise I were then reused on Sunrise II.

21 Airframe Construction Above right Dave Hauler Mating a Sunrise I wing tip to center section, and below left Bill Warner building the Sunrise II horizontal stabilizer.

22 Stress Tests of Wing on Sunrise II

(140 cells per string) are shown installed on the center section of Sunrise II

23 Sunrise II Solar Cells being attached to upper surface of wing. Four Solar panels, each made up of 8 strings of 2 cells wide by 70 cells long (140 cells per string) are shown installed on the center section of Sunrise II wing. A total of 4480 Spectrolab 2x4 cm cells were installed on the center section of the wing.

Sunrise Cobalt 40 Motor ready for testing Astro 40 cobalt motor with 5:1 belt reduction drive and 30x16 wooden prop has been installed in fuselage and is now ready for power testing.

24 Sunrise Cobalt 40 Motor ready for testing Astro 40 cobalt motor with 5:1 belt reduction drive and 30x16 wooden prop has been installed in fuselage and is now ready for power testing. Sunrise I used a 30x16 size prop and Sunrise II used a 34x16 size prop. The Astro Cobalt motor used a rewound armature from our Ferrite 40 motor, installed in a magnetic field housing using Samarium Cobalt magnets supplied by Spectro-Flux of Watsonville California.

25 Thank You I would like to thank all those people who helped make this project possible: John Foster at the Department of Defense Research Enterprise (DDRE), Kent Kressa and Kenneth Perko at the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), William J. Elsner USAF ASD, Bob Shaw at Hughes, Ron Wenninger at Northrup, Lynn Jones, Dan Lott and Stan Hall at Lockheed Sunnyvale CA, Bob Oliver, Terry Hershey and Margret Jewett at Spectrolab in Sun Valley CA, The people at Spectro-Flux in Watsonville CA, my Brother and business partner Roland Boucher and the other guys on our team at Astro Flight, Phil Bernhardt, David Hauer, Bill Warner, Bob Imrisek and Col. Bob Thacker USAF ret.

Sailplane Kits Bob Boucher holding his FAI World Record breaking Malibu

Sailplane Kits Bob Boucher holding his FAI World Record breaking Malibu In August of 1970 bob set a new FAI closed course sailplane record of 302 km in Waimanalu Hawaii with his Malibu. The model features