Solar powered aircraft by hira

Very interesting and timely proposal, given the recent re-start of Solar Impulse's journey in the US! Given your proposal topic and what is currently being done by NASA, Solar Impulse, etc., it would be interesting to explore how best to begin integrating solar technologies within current aircraft. Current costs of new plane designs and technologies are unfortunately slow, but one way to leap-frog this might be to integrate solar panels within current aircraft to transfer some of the required energy load off just jet fuel and provide hybrid options to today's passenger and cargo planes. For the more immediate future, solar power could provide electricity aboard airliners once they reach cruise altitude, or possibly help with ground operations at airports.