With the advent of electric airplanes, a group of engineers and designers took a radically different path than the “fast, heavy” trend that prevailed in the 20th century.
Using light materials and an exaggeratedly large wingspan they managed to put enough solar panels on the wings to never need to land, especially when high above the clouds. In a plane, altitude is energy storage so through a mix of slow descent and just the right amount of batteries, the cruise goes through each night peacefully.
Travel is a different experience than transport and living a few weeks over the clouds is actually a very nice break from the bleak city life.
A handegg field is ~5350m2. What fucking plane has a wing top surface that size?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules
That’s the largest wing area I can find. And “wing area” refers to the entire surface of the wing, top and bottom. Solar will never cover more than half (aside from reflected light but building panels on the underside? really?) and the top wing is slightly less than half when you account for the shape needed for lift. The wing area would be around ~1600m2. And half of that would be 800m2.
That’s ~15% of a football field.