Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg took turns flying the single-seat aircraft that began its historic trip on March 9 of 2015, flying more than 26,700 miles in a total of 17 stages (23 days) as they soared under the sun’s power and then glided through the night.
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The pilots faced a nine-month delay a year ago after the plane’s batteries were damaged during a flight from Japan to Hawaii.
In a statement this week, Borschberg said it is no longer a question of whether it’s possible to fly without fuel or polluting emissions. Inside the tiny cockpit, the ride can be bumpy and the pilot must be hooked to an oxygen tank at high altitudes and is only allowed to sleep 20 minutes at a time.
Mr Piccard, who landed the plane in Abu Dhabi, said Solar Impulse was an achievement in the history of energy.
Along the way the solar plane has broken a wave of world records, including the record for the world’s longest solar-powered flight, and longest distance flown by an electric aeroplane.
The system was created to carry the plane for a full seven days and nights without stopping during the first flight.
The plane also did not have a pressurized cockpit so Mr Borschberg and Mr Piccard could feel changes in temperature.
“You may be ending your journey, but the journey to a sustainable world is just beginning”, Ban told Piccard via Skype, hours before the aircraft landed in Abu Dhabi.Solar Impulse, a lightweight aircraft with the wingspan of a Boeing 747, was on a almost 43,450-kilometre journey around the world.
Mr Piccard, a psychiatrist, is the son of undersea explorer Jacques Piccard and a grandson of balloonist Auguste Piccard.
Piccard and Borschberg have been working on the Solar Impulse project for more than a decade.
Piccard, and his co-pilot Brian Jones, were the first men to circumnavigate the world non-stop in a hot air balloon in 1999.
The project is estimated to cost more than $100 million.
The revolutionary voyage, which the team labeled a “13-year exploit”, demonstrates the biggest exploration of energy efficient batteries and clean technology that could potentially alter the way we travel.
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