After more than four and a half days of flying across the Pacific and setting a record for solo flight, Switzerland’s Solar Impulse 2 airplane was set to arrive in Hawaii on Friday on its epic journey around the world.
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The aircraft is now in a holding pattern, according to the Solar Impulse team’s Twitter feed, which described seeing the first glimpse of the plane’s landing lights in the skies above Hawaii as a “very emotional moment”.
In this Monday, June 29, 2015 photo, the Solar Impulse 2 flies over Nagoya Airport after taking off in Toyoyama in central Japan.
Powered entirely by the sun, its journey from Japan to Hawaii was the longest leg of the solar powered plane’s planned trip, and took more than 120 hours to complete.
The next leg of the flight will be from Honolulu to Phoenix in the USA state of Arizona, and from there Borschberg and Piccard will fly together across the Atlantic on a return path to Abu Dhabi.
“It’s a historic first for aviation, and it’s a historic first for renewable energies”, Piccard said.
Alone throughout the entire flight and utterly self-reliant in the unpressurized cockpit, Borschberg was equipped with a parachute and life raft, in case he needed to ditch in the Pacific.
Landing the Solar Impulse 2 is fairly hard and needs very specific weather conditions to do so.
“Andre, what you did is unbelievable”, Frei said.
The idea of a single flight lasting for five days sounds impossible. Piccard is hoping the flight of Solar Impulse 2 will create some added interest in technologies such as LED lights, electric cars and lightweight vehicles, as well as clean energy sources.
As of 6.20pm UAE time, Mr Borschberg had covered 8,138km, or 98 per cent, of this leg of the journey, and was flying at about 50kph at an altitude of 487m in a holding pattern until sunrise.
Sunlight glimmered on the horizon as the Solar Impulse ground crew burst into cheers and applause upon completion of the groundbreaking flight, whose progress was streamed live at the solar impulse website.
“Congrats @SolarImpulse, beating @Virgin GlobalFlyer record non-stop solo flight without refuelling”. It took 12 years to build this solar plane.
The project is meant to demonstrate the potential of improved energy efficiency and clean power, though solar-powered air travel is not yet commercially practical.
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But it weighs just 5,000lb (2,300kg), around the same as a auto – and travels at about the same speed. Cloud coverage is one of the biggest risks: if the plane can’t draw enough power from its solar cells to fly the plane and recharge the batteries to fly at night, it’s game over for the pilot, so a meteorological team has to keep an eye on the surrounding weather.
