Solar-powered jet wraps up Hawaii-California trip
Print Edition
SOLAR Impulse 2, an experimental plane flying around the world without consuming a drop of fuel, landed on Saturday in California, one leg closer to completing its trailblazing trip.
“The Pacific is done, my friend. I love it, but it’s done,” said clearly relieved Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, who piloted from Hawaii to California, just before landing.
“It’s great to be in California, the land of pioneers,” he said once on the ground, with Google co-founder and alternative energy enthusiast Sergey Brin on hand.
“Innovation and pioneering must continue. The clean tech revolution has to keep moving forward.”
Piccard, a 58-year-old doctor by training, said that enduring the 62-hour stretch between Hawaii and the Silicon Valley town alone was one of his life’s “most amazing” experiences.
“I bet that in 10 years, electric airplanes will be transporting up to 50 people. This will happen,” he added.
The arrival at Moffett Airfield, southeast of San Francisco, marked the completion of the ninth of 13 legs in a journey that began last year in the United Arab Emirates.
Piccard, who has been alternating the long solo flights with alternate pilot Andre Borschberg, will now hand over to his teammate who will pilot the Solar Impulse across the United States and to New York.
Renewable energy
The goal of the mission is to promote the use of renewable energy, with an aircraft powered by 17,000 solar cells. The plane’s wingspan is wider than that of a jumbo jet but its weight is roughly the same as a car’s, due to its light construction.
The SI2 was grounded in July last year when its batteries suffered problems halfway through its 35,000-kilometer circumnavigation.
The crew took several months to repair the damage from high tropical temperatures during the flight’s first Pacific stage, a 6,400km flight between Japan and Hawaii. The jet was flown on that leg by Borschberg, whose 118-hour journey smashed the previous record of 76 hours and 45 minutes set by US adventurer Steve Fossett in 2006.
The Pacific crossing is the most dangerous due to a lack of landing sites in the event of an emergency.
The solar-powered plane, which stores energy in batteries for times when the sun is not shining, will stop in New York before a trans-Atlantic flight to Europe, from where the pilots plan to make their way back to the point of departure in Abu Dhabi.
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