Founder Jay Godsall Products Hybrid aircraft Website solarship.com | Headquarters Toronto, Canada Owner Jay Godsall Founded 2006 | |
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Key people Jay Godsall, CEO
John Hutchinson, CTO
Michel Rugema, COO
Sébastien Fournier, CIO | ||
Solar Ship Inc. is a company based out of Toronto, Canada that develops hybrid aircraft to deliver critical cargo to cut-off places. The solarship gains lift from both buoyant gas and aerodynamics and uses power from solar panels. The aircraft is a new mode of transport that does not rely on fossil fuels or ground infrastructure.
Contents
Why i invested in solar ship
History
Inspired by airships and the Canadian bush plane, the concept behind Solar Ship originally occurred to an adolescent Jay Godsall in 1983. Godsall attended a lunch at the Burundian embassy in Ottawa, Canada with his friend Michel Rugema. A debate broke out regarding who has the worst transport problems. Is it Canada’s north or landlocked Africa? Godsall realized that both areas require a new mode of transportation and he came up with a plan: an aircraft that cannot be limited by a lack of infrastructure or ice roads that won’t freeze. In 2006, Solar Ship Inc. was officially established.
Aircraft
The solarship's wing-ship design allows for extreme short takeoff and landing (XSTOL), such as in a soccer field. Its design provides a large surface area for solar electric power, allowing long, self- sufficient range. A solarship does not need to be solar powered and can be powered by traditional combustion. However, the goal is to develop a new mode of transportation that does not depend on fossil fuels, roads, or runways. The solarship can access areas where planes, trucks, ships and airships cannot, delivering cargo to the places that are currently cut off from the benefits of the connected world. Each solar plane is designed and built to the requirements of a mission. Currently, there are three initial missions with specific requirements: the Wolverine, the Caracal, and the Nanuq. Solar Ship's active mission, as of December 2015, is Mission Burundi.
Incidents
On August 29, 2014, a prototype aircraft owned, designed, and operated by Solar Ship crashed during a test flight in a tobacco field near Brantford Airport, seriously injuring its two pilots, Mark Taylor and Mark Marshall. One of the pilots had to be cut out of the aircraft by rescuers. The crash was attributed to pilot error. The incident resulted in the temporary closure of Brantford Airport.