The pilots’ logbook read, “Si2 is now safe in New York, JFK airport…”
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The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport at 4am after a 4-hour 41-minute flight of about 165 miles from Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania.
After the flyover, the plane was to travel across the Manhattan skyline and then land at New York’s Kennedy Airport.
The clean energy airplane Solar Impulse 2 landed in New York City early Saturday, completing its cross-country journey that began in San Francisco April 24.
“It was really gorgeous”, Borschberg said of the aerial view of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
The secretary-general will meet with the pilots, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, who have so far taken turns at piloting the craft over Asia, the Pacific, and North America, said the officials.
“It’s a question of mindset”, Borschberg said. “You know, when you board the airplane, you think five days’ flight is going to be long, it will be very long”.
“There is such a strong culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the United States, and we have felt this spirit every step of the way, be it technological innovation in the Silicon Valley, or aviation pioneering in Dayton, the home of the Wright brothers where they invented the airplane”, said André Borschberg, CEO and Co-Founder.
The Solar Impulse 2, the spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft of the size of a 747 with the weight of a vehicle and the power of a small motorcycle, uses no fossil fuels and has no emissions. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
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The plane originally was scheduled to head to the Big Apple Monday night but showers and thunderstorms moving through the area caused it to be grounded. NY will be the 14th stop on its 35,000 kilometer (22,000-mile) round-the-world journey which began in Abu Dhabi in March 2015. That plan stalled after it had to make an extended stay in Hawaii to address overheating issues with its batteries.
