Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it superman? No, it definitely was a plane, and quite a special one at that! This plane is powered by the sun’s rays, and it recently made aviation history.
Powered completely by the sun, the Swiss-made plane, called Solar Impulse 2 (SI2), recently completed a gruelling 71-hour transatlantic flight after flying from New York to Seville in Spain.
Just a single-seater, and weighing about the same as a car, the plane travels at an average speed of just under 50km/h, but it can reach a speed twice that when exposed to full sun. The plane uses more than 17,0000 solar cells that are built into its wings to power itself, and it has a wing span greater than a Boeing 747.
Our #solar heroes of the day @bertrandpiccard and @andreborschberg the oceans are behind us, we made it to @spain pic.twitter.com/dJvFz92jMw
— SOLAR IMPULSE (@solarimpulse) June 23, 2016
The epic flight, which concluded in Seville in late June, was flown by Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard, and was the first solar-powered transatlantic crossing ever. The flight was just one leg of an ambitious 35,400km round-the-world trip that began on 9 March last year in Abu Dhabi.
Before this leg, which is the 15th of the RTW journey, the other Swiss pilot in the team, Andre Borschberg, completed an insane 118-hour flight from Japan to Hawaii, which broke the previous record for the longest uninterrupted journey in aviation history.
But it certainly hasn’t all been smooth sailing up there in the sky. The New York to Seville leg was bumpy with turbulence, according to Piccard, and he hardly managed to get any sleep.
At the core of the historic RTW journey is a belief in the possibility of using solar power instead of fossil fuel to power the world, using the hashtag #futureisclean, which is a cause Piccard is totally committed to promoting.
“When I look at my propellers, turning days and nights on end, activated solely by the sun, I feel like in a science fiction movie. Yet, it is today’s reality; the one I want to promote.”
Bertrand Piccard, Swiss pilot of Solar Impulse 2, on his blog.
Surprisingly, air travel costs the environment more than you might imagine, being the 7th biggest polluter in the world if it was a country.
Andre Borschberg’s final leg (and the journey’s penultimate leg) from Seville to Cairo recently took off yesterday. You can follow the flight here.
