The aircraft itself was first conceived by a pair of Swiss adventurers, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, who also piloted the aircraft.
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Be proactive – Use the “Flag as Inappropriate” link at the upper right corner of each comment to let us know of abusive posts. “I think it became a great idea, thanks to you, and thanks for all the people who came with me”.
Hours earlier, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon lavished praise on the team in a live-streamed conversation.
Attending the landing, Doris Leuthard said: “Courage, innovation and knowledge: for Switzerland, those three words will forever resonate with the year 2016”. “This is a historic day, not only for you but for humanity”.
Dubbed the “paper plane”, Solar Impulse 2 circumnavigated the globe in 17 stages, with 58-year-old Piccard and his compatriot Andre Borschberg taking turns at the controls of the single-seater.
Borschberg’s flight over the Pacific Ocean at 118 hours or what is five days and five nights shattered the record for the longest flight duration by an aircraft flying solo.
The aircraft’s wings were covered with solar cells, used to produce electricity to power four electric motors that turned the plane’s propellers.
The trip had mechanical setbacks, and the plane’s average speed would be legal on many American streets.
Since the cockpit is not pressurized, Borschberg and Piccard could feel changes in temperature. “This is why it’s very important to understand that it’s more than an achievement for the history of aviation, it’s a success for the history of energy”.
His dream has taken much longer than planned.
Previous year pilot André Borschberg crossed the Atlantic from Nagoya in Japan to Hawaii in just five days in the Si2. In an interview to Mint on 11 March past year that he had met Modi in 2011 in Gujarat and was impressed by the initiatives taken by him in the renewable energy sector. “You have to give it your all because it is a project that relies on weather conditions and doesn’t respect holidays or birthdays or weekends”, he said. On the ground, they were helped by a team of 30 engineers, 25 technicians and 22 navigation controllers.
The plane, developed and flown by Swiss co-founder and adventurer Bertrand Piccard, arrived at Abu Dhabi at 4:02 a.m. local time (GMT0002) on Tuesday after about 48 hours flying from the previous stop of Egypt’s capital of Cairo.
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Secondly, they will carry on the work initiated by the engineering team on unmanned and high endurance electric aircrafts, which could fly in high altitude for months, offering services that could provide exponential added value and complement the work being done by satellites today in a flexible and sustainable way. “It’s really exhausting”, he tweeted on Sunday.
