Solar plane completes 11th leg of global trip
Print Edition
AN experimental plane powered solely by energy from the sun has flown from Arizona to Oklahoma on the 11th leg of a historic bid by its pilots and developers to fly around the globe without a drop of fuel.
The single-seat Solar Impulse 2 arrived at Tulsa International Airport in Oklahoma at 11:15pm on Thursday, 18 hours after leaving Phoenix Goodyear Airport, the project team said in a statement.
Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard called the 1,609-kilometer trip “a magical flight” on his Twitter account.
The long hours required for covering relatively short distances showed how slowly the plane flies compared with conventional aircraft.
With a wingspan exceeding that of a Boeing 747 but an ultra-light carbon-fiber skin and overall weight of a car, the Solar Impulse cruises at speeds ranging from 55 to 100 kilometers per hour. Its four engines are powered by energy collected from more than 17,000 solar cells built into its wings. Excess energy is stored in four batteries during daylight hours to keep the plane flying after dark.
The plane can climb to 8,500 meters, but generally flies at lower altitudes at night to conserve energy.
Piccard and Andre Borschberg have been taking turns piloting the plane. Both men have trained to stay alert for long stretches of time by practicing meditation and hypnosis.
Borschberg set a new endurance record for the longest non-stop solo flight last July during a 118-hour trans-Pacific crossing, over five days and five nights, from Japan to Hawaii. He also set new duration and distance records for solar-powered flight.
But battery damage sustained during the crossing kept the aircraft grounded for nine months.
The Swiss team’s goal is to achieve the first round-the-world solar-powered flight, part of its campaign to bolster support for clean-energy technologies.
The team hopes to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, the starting point for the journey in March last year.
The two men completed an earlier multi-flight crossing of the United States in a prototype of the solar plane in 2013 as a precursor to their globe-circling quest.
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