Solar Impulse 2, the “zero-fuel” aircraft, landed in Phoenix, Arizona on Monday, completing the first leg across the United States in its around the world flight.
Advertisement
The Swiss-made plane arrived in Goodyear, south-west of Phoenix, yesterday after a flight from Mountain View lasting nearly 16 hours.
A solar-powered plane is crossing the Mojave Desert on its way from California to Arizona on the latest leg of its round-the-world journey. The next leg of the solar… But the tailwinds were too strong for some portions of the flight – so to slow down, the pilot had to sometimes turn the plane around and fly into the headwinds, essentially flying backward toward Phoenix. If Borschberg and Piccard can reach Abu Dhabi once more, they will have successfully circled the globe without consuming a single drop of fuel.
It has bigger wings than a 747 to hold the thousands of cells that catch the sun’s rays and power the Solar Impulse II.
In a precursor of their globe-circling quest, the two men completed a multi-flight crossing of the United States with an earlier version of the solar plane in 2013. From there, the pilots plan to make their way back to the point of departure in Abu Dhabi.
“I’m heating up water for coffee”, Borschberg told his ground crew.
Borschberg’s Swiss co-pilot, Bertrand Piccard, made the three-day trip from Hawaii to the heart of Silicon Valley, where he landed on April 23.
Surplus power is stored in four batteries during daylight hours to keep the plane flying overnight, allowing it to remain aloft around the clock on extreme long-distance flights.
“We have demonstrated it is feasible to fly many days, many nights, that the technology works” said Mr Borschberg, who piloted the plane during a five-day trip from Japan to Hawaii and kept himself alert by doing yoga poses and meditation.
Advertisement
The journey has encountered countless obstacles along the way, forcing the pilots to make unplanned stops, including one Japan after being caught in unsafe weather, and 9-month long delay in the island of Oahu in Hawaii, due to battery damage that the plane sustained on its journey from Japan.
