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Swiss pioneers and ambassadors for clean technology, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, continue their circumnavigation with an expected duration of approximately 62 hours. Solar Impulse Photo
Swiss pioneers and ambassadors for clean technology, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, left the Kakaeloa Airport in Hawaii at 6:15 a.m. Hawaiian time, heading back towards Abu Dhabi (UAE) where the circumnavigation started on March 9, 2015, to continue their spectacular journey of the first-ever solar flight around-the-world.
This stage will lead the Solar Impulse (Si2)—the first airplane able to fly day and night without a drop of fuel, propelled solely by the sun’s energy—to the West Coast of the United States with an expected duration of approximately 62 hours.
“These upcoming legs from Hawaii to the West Coast and further on will be extremely challenging for both pilots and the aircraft as it will be across the U.S. land mass and over the Atlantic Ocean,” said Jakob Burkard, the FAI Official Observer.
The team identified Moffett Federal Airfield near Mountain View, East of San Francisco, Calif., as the target. Additionally, four other potential destinations have been set in order to leave maximum flexibility for route planning: Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles or Vancouver.
The mission is then planned to continue onward to New York, Europe or North Africa and then its final destination of Abu Dhabi. Having been appointed as judge by the Swiss Aero Club, Burkard’s main responsibility is to ensure that the FAI rules and the Sporting Code are respected and that the requirements to qualify for the record attempts are fulfilled.
As the project is weather dependent and will need optimal conditions during three to four days in a row, another challenge for the pilots is finding sunlight to power the plane and avoiding clouds. “Not only [do] the pilots need to be mentally and psychologically at their peak, also the meteorologists have to forecast an almost-perfect prognosis of the weather conditions,” said Burkard. “And not to forget the engineers, who have to optimally prepare the aircraft for departure and then its management for which they are responsible when—and if—the flight takes place.”
Piccard and Borschberg have conducted several successful training and test flights over the last two months. The Si2 has been based at the Hawaiian airport since July 2015 after the aircraft’s batteries experienced thermal damage during the flight over the Pacific Ocean, which led to an unforeseen pause.
The plane is ready again and with the training flights, Piccard and his co-pilot Borschberg got the feel of the plane back again in order to resume the circumnavigation.
The first half of the endeavour is already an enormous success as solar energy has made it possible to fly five days and five nights crossing an ocean and remaining airborne longer than any jet plane in history. Between March and July 2015, Piccard and Borschberg have flown eight legs without a drop of fuel from the starting point: Abu Dhabi, UAE; Muscat, Oman; Ahmedabad, India; Varanasi, India; Mandalay, Myanmar; Chongqing, China; Nanjing, China; Nagoya, Japan; then over the Pacific Ocean to Kakaeloa, Hawaii, breaking numerous FAI world records along the way in duration, free distance along a course and straight distance free flight.
For live tracking, visit solarimpulse.com.
