A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg has begun his bid to cross the Pacific, from China to Hawaii, in the zero-fuel Solar Impulse aeroplane.The experimental aircraft, which has a wingspan bigger than a jumbo but weighs little more than a large car, left Nanjing at 02:39 (18:39 GMT).It is likely to take Mr Borschberg five to six days of continuous flight to reach his central Pacific destination.He will try to stay awake for much of that time, taking only short catnaps.His progress will be monitored the entire way from a control room in Monaco.Meteorologists and flight strategists will constantly update him on the best route to follow.The journey is the seventh leg in the single-seat, propeller-driven aircraft's quest to circumnavigate the globe using just the energy of the Sun.
The project made steady progress after starting out from Abu Dhabi in March, but was held up for more than a month on China's east coast waiting for the right weather conditions over the ocean. Solar Impulse needs not only favourable winds to help push it forward, but also clear skies to enable its 17,000 wing-mounted photovoltaic cells to achieve peak performance.
These cells must have the vehicle's lithium-ion batteries fully topped up at dusk to sustain flying through to dawn the next day.The pilot himself would not go down with the plane because of the risk of electrocution once in the water. Instead, he would bail out with a dinghy and wait for a ship to come and pick him up.If he succeeds in reaching Kalaeloa airport, he will set several aviation records - not least the longest-duration journey for a single-seater plane.
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