Solar Impulse 2, the solar airplane, piloted by Swiss adventurer Andre Borschberg, flies over the Statue of Libery in in NY, U.S. June 11, 2016 shortly before landing at John F. Kennedy airport.
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Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard arrived with the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 at JFK Airport early Saturday after leaving Pennsylvania as part of their globe-circling voyage.
The flight from Pennsylvania to NY was the 14th leg of the team’s round-the-world journey.
As it flew from Allentown, Pa.to NYC, the plane flew over the Statue of Liberty. It circled the statue in an exciting photoshoot that gave a closure to the USA portion of its effort to go around the globe with just solar power.
The plane was supposed to arrive Monday night, but thunderstorms delayed its arrival to JFK Airport.
“It was really gorgeous”, Borschberg said of the aerial view of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
“I felt like a three-year-old kid looking at the Christmas tree, it was so attractive”, Borschberg told a news conference after landing. Its trip across the U.S. began when Solar Impulse landed in San Francisco from Hawaiion April 24. The takeoff date and flight path for that important next leg have yet to be determined, but possible destinations include Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain and Morocco.
Across the US, they stopped in Phoenix; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Dayton, Ohio, home of aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright; and Allentown, Pennsylvania.
The Solar Impulse team will now set off for Europe, aiming to land in Paris in order to recreate aviator Charles Lindbergh’s first transatlantic flight in 1927. During night flights it runs on battery-stored power, traveling 30 miles (48 kilometers) per hour, although its flight speed can double when exposed to full sunlight.
It was the 14th leg of an east-west journey that began 9 March, 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and has taken the aircraft across Asia and the Pacific to the United States.
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After beginning in Abu Dhabi, the plane’s world tour was delayed in 2015 when some of its batteries were damaged on a flight between Japan and Hawaii.
