The experimental airplane – SOLAR IMPULSE 2 airplane touched down early Tuesday, amid much fanfare in Abu Dhabi UAE, completing the last leg, of the first entirely solar-powered flight around the world, the same city where the historic voyage started, a year ago in March 2015.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon joined a live-stream video call, on Monday, encouraged the team during the last leg and said: “Solar Impulse has flown more than 40,000 kilometers without fuel, but with an inexhaustible supply of energy and inspiration. This is a historic day for Captain Piccard and the Solar Impulse team, but it is also a historic day for humanity.”
Moments after landing, Swiss Pilot Bertrand Piccard, gave a thumbs up while sticking his hand out of the cockpit, and said: “We made it! We made it! All together, we did it!”. Piccard was feeling very emotional at the end of the journey and said: “It is a very, very special moment – it has been 15 years that I am working on this goal. I hope people will understand that it is not just a first in the history of aviation, but also a first in the history of energy”
Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg had taken turns flying the single-seat aircraft for more than 26,700 miles in a total of 17 stages (23 days). The one stretch of the plane’s world tour using only energy from the sun, Borschberg completed the world’s longest non-stop solo flight last July — a four-day, 21-hour, 52-minute trip from Japan to Hawaii.
The 2.3 ton plane, carries more than 17,000 solar cells on its wings, and is 72 m and that’s 3.5 m wider than a BOEING 747. The batteries, make up a quarter of the craft’s weight. During the daylight the plane climbs to 29,000 feet and glided down to 5,000 feet at night, to conserve power. The plane flies at about 30mph, and could go faster if the sun is bright. The plane can almost fly perpetually but for the grueling conditions aboard the craft.
Solar Impulse’s journey would not have been possible if not for the €20m from sponsors and has not been without technical difficulties. Crosswinds in China had caused weeks of delays in 2015 and overheating batteries during the Pacific forced it to spend the winter in Hawaii. Bob Van der Linden, the curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum, recently said, “It was never intended to be a pioneering plane,” but instead a way to advance solar power technology.
