The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 took off from Dayton International Airport just after 4 a.m. Wednesday with a destination of Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania. That’s another 650 miles ticked off of its bid to circumnavigate the globe using only solar energy.
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The latest leg of the solar-powered plane’s flight on its round-the-world trip should take 17 hours as it wings its way towards Allentown, Pennsylvania. “We had to ensure the airplane was safe to continue”, the Solar Impulse’s Web site said. Bertrand Piccard was the pilot for the nearly 17-hour flight.
Solar Impulse 2 touched down at Lehigh Valley International Airport at 8:49 pm local time, Wednesday.
The carbon-fibre plane, with a wingspan exceeding that of a Boeing 747 and the weight of a family vehicle. It continued with several more legs across Asia before Borschberg completed the world’s longest non-stop solo flight, a four-day, 21-hour and 52-minute excursion from Japan to Hawaii. The plane runs on stored energy at night. “Our hope is to motivate everyone to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels in their daily lives and encourage concrete actions for sustainability”.
Co-pilot and co-founder Andre Borschberg will now fly the plane to New York City, including a flyover of the Statue of Liberty, while Piccard prepares for the Atlantic crossing which will take place a few days later and could take up to a week. From there, it is scheduled to head back to Abu Dhabi this year, according to the website documenting the journey.
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“We don’t want any news helicopters in the air. We’d rather people watch the landing on the website solarimpulse.com”, Everett said.
