With its two cockpits, the winner is as odd a design as one could imagine, whereby the aim is clearly to make you believe it needs two cockpits and a corresponding huge wing span for efficient electrical flight, thus making the concept totally uneligible as a personal aircraft — much the same trick as with Piccard’s Solar Impulse with its wing-span of over 60 meters.

Because both the Swiss and US governement are scared to death by the perspective of the civil society threatening their hitherto unchallenged military air superiority with hundreds of millions of ultra-light, electrical personal aircraft.

Remember: NASA is a US government entity, and Bertrand Piccard — as the last representative of a dynasty of scientific adventurers — is just abused by the Swiss government to serve as a charismatic promoter of an aircraft project far away from any realistic availability as a personal aircraft.

I would recommend the readers to focus their attention on the Electra One from the German PC-Aero company, who just won the 2011 Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prize with its associated solar-panel-roofed hangar…