The first-ever manned airplane that can fly by day or night on the sun’s power alone soared over the western US late on Friday on the first leg of cross-country journey.
Solar Impulse, piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, left the runway in northern California at 6:12am against the backdrop of a golden morning sunrise, in what a mission control operator called a “perfect takeoff.”
The plane flew over the California-Arizona border high above the Color River, Solar Impulse tweeted.
Photo: Reuters
Flying quietly and slowly at an average speed of about 49kph, the plane was scheduled to arrive in Phoenix, Arizona, early yesterday under cover of darkness.
A dashboard showing the live speed, direction, battery status, solar generator and engine power, along with cockpit cameras of both Piccard and his view from the plane, were online at live.solarimpulse.com.
The US itinerary allows for up to 10 days at each stop to showcase the plane’s technology to the public. Other stops are planned for Dallas, Texas, and Washington, before wrapping up in New York in early July.
That will allow two pilots — Piccard and his co-founder, Swiss engineer and ex-fighter pilot Andre Borschberg — to share duties and rest between flights.
The project aims to showcase what can be accomplished without fossil fuels, and has set its “ultimate goal” as an around-the-world flight in 2015.
The plane has four electric motors and runs on energy provided by 12,000 solar cells.
Longer trips have already been successfully completed by the plane, which made the world’s first solar 26-hour day and night trip in 2010. However, the cockpit has room for just one pilot, so even though the plane could likely make the entire US journey in three days, Piccard decided it would be easier to rest and exchange flight control with Borschberg at the stops.
Solar Impulse was launched in 2003. The plane can fly at night by reaching a high elevation of 8,230m and then gently gliding downward, using almost no power through the night until the sun comes up to begin recharging the aircraft’s solar cells.
The US journey is being billed as the plane’s first cross-continent flight. The aircraft completed its first intercontinental journey from Europe to Africa in June last year on a jaunt from Madrid to Rabat.
The slim plane is particularly sensitive to turbulence and has no room for passengers, but Piccard said that those issues are challenges to be met in the future, rather than setbacks.
“Instead of speaking of the problems, we want to demonstrate solutions,” Piccard said as he flew toward Phoenix, stressing that renewable technologies already exist and are well-known to science.
“Now we need to put them on a big scale everywhere in our daily life,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of