Swiss innovators Mr Betrand Piccard and Mr Andre Borschberg are taking their dream of solar-powered aircraft to a new level as they attempt to fly around the world in their aircraft named Solar Impulse 2, after breaking eight world records for flights powered solely by the sun.
The aircraft will take off from Abu Dhabi in late February or early March, with the aim to return in late July or early August, according to news just released by the Solar Impulse team.
Mr Piccard and Mr Borschberg held a press conference with members of their team in the capital of the United Arab Emirates on January 20 to announce their plan and route.
After over 12 years of design and testing, the circumnavigation of the globe provides the ultimate test and further publicity for the team’s efforts to make solar-powered flight a reality.
Solar Impulse 2, which carries one pilot and is able to fly for several days and nights, and will make the journey in stages, landing 12 times along its roughly 35,000 kilometre [22,000 mile] route – including a five-day stretch above the Pacific Ocean without a drop of fuel.
“We want to demonstrate that clean technology and renewable energy can achieve the impossible,” said Solar Impulse chairman Mr Piccard, the scion of a dynasty of Swiss scientists-cum-adventurers. “Renewable energy can become an integral part of our lives, and together we can help save our planet’s natural resources.”
The route includes stops in Muscat, Oman, Ahmedabad and Varanasi in India, Mandalay in Myanmar, and Chongqing and Nanjing in China. After crossing the Pacific Ocean via Hawaii, Solar Impulse 2 will fly across the Continental USA stopping in three locations including Phoenix and New York City, according to their press release.
It will take around 25 days of total flying time for the aircraft to complete its round-the-world journey. Limits imposed on the length of any one leg of the flight are largely imposed by how long the pilot can handle the flight and bouts of sleep.
With flight speeds of 50-100 kilometres [30-60 miles] per hour, the entire round-the-world journey is expected to take five months to complete.
The plane is the successor of Solar Impulse, a pioneering craft which managed a 26-hour flight in 2010, demonstrating it was possible to store enough power in lithium batteries during the day to keep flying at night.
Solar Impulse 2 is said to be the most energy efficient aircraft ever built and has a wider wingspan than a Boeing 747. But it is light, weighing close to a large SUV. The carbon fibre, single seater plane has 17,249 solar cells built into its wings that will supply four electric motors and the rechargeable lithium batteries.
The flight can be followed on the firm’s website Solarimpulse.com.
“Solar Impulse 2 must accomplish what no other plane in the history of aviation has achieved – flying without fuel for five consecutive days and nights with only one pilot in the unpressurised cockpit,” said Mr Borschberg, a former Swiss air force pilot and the company’s co-founder and chief executive.
