In this handout picture taken and released by Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered airplane, shows Swiss pioneer Bertrand Piccardis (top-R) and Andre Borschberg (top-L) posing for a picture with the team after landing in Abu Dhabi complete its world tour flight on July 26, 2016 in the United Arab Emirates.
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The Solar Impulse 2 plane lands in an airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, early Tuesday, July 26, 2016, marking the historic end of the first attempt to fly around the world without a drop of fuel, powered exclusively by the suns energy.
“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.
The adventure began with Bertrand Piccard’s vision that clean technologies and energy efficiency can reduce our emissions and improve our quality of life.
The journey began in March previous year but after almost 500 hours of flying time on a journey of about 40,000 km (24,500 miles), Piccard said they have demonstrated clean technology is viable: “Our partners not only paid for the project, but also made the technology possible, and with our efforts we made it work and heading for the market, so that Solar Impulse was able fly day and night without fuel”.
Commenting on the achievement, Initiator, Chairman and Pilot Bertrand Piccard said “This is not only a first in the history of aviation; it’s before all a first in the history of energy”.
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.
The Swiss-engineered Solar Impulse 2 is an example that clean technologies actually can be used in fantastic ways to cut down on fuel consumptions. He is the chief executive officer of the Solar Impulse project.
As one of the world’s most innovative and sustainable energy companies, SunPower Corp.
Later, while onlookers cheered and applauded, he added, “The future is clean”.
The propeller-driven aircraft’s 4 engines are powered exclusively by energy collected by the over 17-thousand solar cells built into the plane’s wings. “This is a historic day for Captain Piccard and the Solar Impulse team, but it is also a historic day for humanity”, said the UN Secretary-General. An entrepreneur and skilled aviator, Borschberg took on the technical challenge of developing the solar airplane and making it fly.
The Swiss explorer urged the public not to accept the world record as granted, but to “take it further”.
He said that Solar Impulse is well-positioned to contribute to the next generation of manned or unmanned electric aircraft. Borschberg’s journey over the Pacific Ocean at 118 hours shattered the record for the longest flight duration by an aircraft flying solo.
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“This is not only a first in the history of aviation; it’s before all a first in the history of energy”, Piccard said.
