Having started its solar-powered flight in March past year, the aircraft has travelled over 35,000km across the globe using an estimated 11,655kWh of solar energy and has made its final stop in Abu Dhabi this morning.
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“By flying around the world thanks to renewable energy and clean technologies, we have demonstrated that we can now make our world more energy efficient”, he said. You can fly now longer without fuel than with fuel, and you fly with the force of nature, you fly with the sun.
The 40,000km flight was shared between André Borschberg and record-breaking hot air ballooner Bertrand Piccard, who alternated the 17 legs of the journey between them.
The propeller-driven aircraft’s four engines are powered exclusively by energy collected by more than 17,000 solar cells built into the plane’s wings.
His dream has taken much longer than planned.
A psychiatrist who made the first non-stop balloon flight around the world in 1999, Mr Piccard had warned the last leg would be hard because of the high temperatures.
The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft is seen after landing at Al Batin Airport in Abu Dhabi to complete its world tour flight on July 26, 2016 in the United Arab Emirates. The attempt was initially expected to last five months, including 25 days of actual flying.
But the aircraft was grounded in July previous year when its solar-powered batteries suffered problems halfway through the trip.
It was also delayed for more than a week in Cairo ahead of its final flight to Abu Dhabi when Piccard fell ill, and due to poor weather conditions. One pilot flew one leg, the other met the flight at the next stop and took over controls.
“You may be ending your journey, but the journey to a sustainable world is just beginning”, Ban told Piccard via Skype, hours before the aircraft landed in Abu Dhabi.Solar Impulse, a lightweight aircraft with the wingspan of a Boeing 747, was on a almost 43,450-kilometre journey around the world.
“It’s a project for energy, for a better world”, Piccard told journalists in Cairo before taking off.
The system was created to carry the plane for a full seven days and nights without stopping during the first flight. “It’s really exhausting”, he tweeted on Sunday.
Adnan Amin, director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), headquartered in Abu Dhabi, noted that Solar Impulse 2 had changed perceptions of solar power, not least its ability to provide a reliable power source at night, as well as during the day. “It is because we believe in this cooperation, as well as in innovation, that Switzerland was the first country to register its participation in Expo 2020 in the UAE city of Dubai”.
During the trip the Swiss co-pilots broke nine records, including the landing in Abu Dhabi.
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This post was syndicated from The Guardian NigeriaThe Guardian Nigeria.
