Solar Impulse 2 postpones Japan to Hawaii flight
Print Edition
A solar-powered plane carrying no fuel has postponed its departure from central Japan for Hawaii due to worse than expected weather conditions.
Swiss pilot and project co-founder Bertrand Piccard said the weather window for the flight of Solar Impulse 2 early yesterday had closed. After analyzing conditions, the decision was made to take the plane back to its mobile hangar.
“It’s a bad moment. It’s really a bad moment. It was on the edge. We took the decision to go, but not everybody was enthusiastic. We had a conclusion that it’s not worth trying anymore,” said Piccard, who is taking turns flying the plane with his co-pilot Andre Borschberg.
Borschberg, who is to fly the Japan-Hawaii leg of the round-the-world journey, sat for hours in the cockpit waiting and then got back out. “I trust they took a good decision. We discussed it on the radio. Despite the fact it’s very hard it’s the right way to go,” he said.
A live video feed showed the staff in the control center in Monaco engaged in intense discussions over the weather and possible strategies. The plane needed to take off before sunrise because otherwise it would become too hot and windy to either leave or return it to the inflatable mobile hangar at Nagoya’s Komaki airport.
Borschberg landed on June 1 while en route from the Chinese city of Nanjing to Honolulu. He was to fly the plane solo during the roughly five-day trip, taking short naps, doing yoga and meditating to endure the lack of sleep.
The airplane carries no fuel, so project engineers are using simulations to determine when it is safe to fly.
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