“Have a great flight, Bertrand – enjoy it, and don’t forget to come down!” shouted Borschberg from the runway as Solar Impulse 2 took off.
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The Solar Impulse 2 will take about sixty-six hours to make its journey to Mountain View in the U.S. state of California.
The Solar Impulse 2 was originally supposed to land in Abu Dhabi, where it started its journey in March 2015, by the end of last summer.
Solar Impulse will continue with flight legs across America, the Atlantic Ocean and Europe before reaching its starting point and final destination of Abu Dhabi.
“The drive behind the Solar Impulse mission is to demonstrate how innovation and a pioneering spirit can change the world”, said Thomas Oetterli, CEO of Schindler.
Piccard’s co-pilot Andre Borschberg, who flew the leg from Japan to Hawaii, told Piccard he greatly admires his dedication and strength.
The Solar Impulse 2 solar plane is moved out of the hangar to prepare for a dawn lift off at the Kalaeloa Airport, Thursday, April 21, 2016, in Kapolei, Hawaii.
A solar-powered airplane that had been Phoenix-bound before a battery issue grounded it last July has resumed its flight around the world.
“We made a mistake with our batteries”, Piccard said after the plane touched down in July.
Still, the pilots and their team of more than 100 pushed onward, repairing the aircraft and preparing it for what they called “the moment of truth” – the Pacific crossing to Hawaii.
A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.
That trans-Pacific leg was the riskiest part of the plane’s global travels so far, as there was nowhere for it to land in an emergency. The co-founders switch off flying the plane, and the Hawaii-to-mainland USA leg of the flight has Piccard in the cockpit.
Strong tailwinds will help the plane and speed up the journey, which is expected to take about three days. The carbon-fiber aircraft weighs more than 5,000 pounds, or about as much as a midsize truck. The plane’s 236-foot wingspan was built using more than 17,000 solar cells, four electric motors and lithium batteries to replace the need for fuel. The system is created to fly through the night, relying on stored energy.
At the 2016 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, pilots André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard speak about the future of clean technology a…
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The ultra-lightweight plane took off at 6:18 a.m. Hawaii time (9:18 a.m. PT).
