The Solar Impulse 2, an experimental solar-powered aircraft, landed in Phoenix, Arizona, late on Monday, completing the latest leg of its around-the-world journey to draw attention to clean energy technologies.
Pilot Andre Borschberg put the long, light, propeller-driven aircraft down at Phoenix Goodyear Airport at 8:55pm after a 15 hour, 52 minute flight from Moffet Airfield southeast of San Francisco.
“I made it to #Phoenix, what an amazing flight over the Mojave Desert to promote #futureisclean,” Borschberg said on Twitter.
Photo: AP
The plane had been in California for a week since crossing the Pacific in an approximately 60-hour flight to land in Mountain View.
Borschberg, who has been alternating the long solo flights with his teammate, Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, is to pilot Solar Impulse 2 across the US and to New York. Piccard piloted the craft from Hawaii to California.
The 63-year-old adventurer took off at 5am to take advantage of a clear weather window on a 1,203km voyage high over the Mojave Desert.
Photo: AFP
“The sun is rising in the horizon. It feels good to be flying round-the-world with #Si2 again,” Borschberg posted on Twitter after taking off.
It was the 10th of 13 legs of a journey that began last year in the United Arab Emirates.
“As the sun gets higher, #Si2’s energy reserves will start filling up, thanks to all its #cleantechs,” Borschberg wrote on Twitter.
The solar-powered plane, which stores energy in batteries for when the sun is not shining, is to make several stops across the US, although the team is still examining potential destinations.
Thanks to an inflatable mobile hangar, which can be packed up quickly and transported, Solar Impulse 2 can be sheltered at a variety of possible locations.
The plane is to make a final US stop in New York before a transatlantic flight to Europe. From there, the pilots plan to make their way back to the point of departure in Abu Dhabi.
The mission aims to promote the use of renewable energy, with an aircraft powered by 17,000 solar cells.
“If an airplane can fly day and night without fuel, we could all use these same clean technologies on the ground to develop new industrial markets and stimulate economic growth, while also protecting the environment,” Piccard said in a statement.
The plane’s wingspan is broader than that of a jumbo jet, but its weight is roughly the same as a family car.
Solar Impulse 2 was grounded in July last year when its batteries suffered problems halfway through its 35,000km circumnavigation.
The crew took several months to repair damage from tropical high temperatures during the first Pacific stage, a flight between Japan and Hawaii.
The aircraft was flown on that leg by Borschberg, whose 118-hour journey smashed the previous record of 76 hours, 45 minutes set by US adventurer Steve Fossett in 2006.
Born in Zurich, Borschberg is no stranger to adventure — 15 years ago he narrowly escaped an avalanche and then in 2013 he escaped a helicopter crash with just minor injuries.
He took catnaps of only 20 minutes at a time to maintain control of the pioneering plane during his arduous flight from Japan, in what his team described as “difficult” conditions.
Piccard completed the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight in 1999.
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