Instead, I’m following up on Solar Impulse 2 lands in California with the next leg of the trip.
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A solar-powered plane has landed in Arizona a day after it took off from California on a round-the-world journey.
Borschberg has been alternating the flights with teammate Bertrand Piccard – who completed the previous leg of the journey from Hawaii to California and broke the previous 76 hour record set by Steve Fossett in 2006.
Continuing its journey around the world using only energy from the sun.
The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived in Phoenix shortly before 9 p.m., following a flight from San Francisco that took it over the Mojave Desert.
If you take a close look at nose of the Solar Impulse 2, the sun-powered plane making its way around the world, you’ll see a familiar word to Central New Yorkers: “Solvay”.
The Swiss pilots tackling the flight are Andre Borschberg and Betrand Piccard.
And he added: “It was a special flight; not a long flight”.
After Phoenix, the plane will make two more stops in the USA before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to either Europe or northern Africa.
(AP Photo/Matt York). Grounds crew pull pilot Andre Borschberg and the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 plane to the hanger after landing, Monday, May 2, 2016, in Goodyear, Ariz.
Surplus power is stored in four batteries during the day, to keep the plane aloft on extreme long-distance flights.
The lengthy duration of Monday’s flight, which an airliner would make in just two hours, stems from a cruising speed more akin to that of a vehicle, requiring pilots to practice meditation and hypnosis in training to stay alert for long hours.
Solar Impulse 2 was grounded in July a year ago when its batteries suffered problems halfway through its 21,700-mile (35,000-kilometre) circumnavigation.
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Layovers give the pilots an opportunity to swap places and engage with local communities along the way so they can explain the project, which is estimated to be costing more than £100m (£68m) and began in 2002 to highlight the importance of renewable energy and the spirit of innovation.
