A solar-powered airplane landed in the Bay Area on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world.
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And now, the aircraft has flown non-stop for 62 hours from Honolulu in Hawaii to the home of Silicon Valley in Mountain View, California after what would have been the most treacherous aspect of the journey due to the obvious lack of emergency landing sites over the Pacific Ocean. The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Airfield where Piccard was greeted by project’s team.
The Solar Impulse 2’s journey started from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in March 2015.
Solar Impulse gets all its energy from the sun through the 17,000 photovoltaic cells that cover the top surfaces of the craft.
The aircraft took off once again with one of its pilots, Bertrand Piccard, who alternates with Andre Borschberg.
Fully loaded, the 22-metre-long Solar Impulse 2 weights about 2,300kg.
An airplane powered by the sun finished a unsafe journey over the Pacific late Saturday evening, landing safely in northern California after a 62-hour flight from Hawaii.
Flight speed can increase and almost double during times when the sun’s rays are stronger, however.
The aim of the men was to show others how to help sustain the Earth’s environment and also to show that the world can be run on clean energy, according to a news release by the team. The wings of airplane are wider than those of a Boeing 747.
Solar Impulse 2 was meant to finish the journey a year ago, but weather, storm damage and battery problems have stalled its progress. “It exists and clean technologies can do the impossible”, he said.
“We made a mistake with our batteries”, said Piccard when the plane touched down in July.
Bertrand Piccard, piloting the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft, watched the sun rise over the north Pacific after taking off on battery power during darkness, according to a livestream from a website documenting the journey.
After uncertainty about winds, the plane took off from Hawaii on Thursday morning and at one point passengers on a Hawaiian Air jet caught a glimpse of solar plane, before speeding past it.
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“People have to dare”, said Piccard, 58, a psychiatrist who in 1999, with another colleague, completed the first successful nonstop balloon circumnavigation of the globe – the first circumnavigation requiring no fuel for forward motion.
