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...
The plane began the stage on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, travelling 1,044km to reach the East Coast waypoint. The journey is the 13th leg in a quest that started in Abu Dhabi last year to circumnavigate the globe on zero fuel. Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard was in the pilot's seat of the 72m-wingspan, electric plane. The aircraft took off from Dayton International Airport at 04:02 local time (08:02 GMT). It landed in Lehigh Valley at 20:49 local time (00:49 GMT, Thursday). The achievement positions the project to make its entry into New York in the coming days. The "Big Apple" is set to be the base for Solar Impulse as it waits for a weather window to fly the Atlantic. Deciding when to cross the ocean will be a tricky decision. The slow-moving, ultra-light plane needs benign winds, and the team concedes that the right conditions may not present themselves for several weeks.Wednesday's flight to Lehigh Valley was postponed for 24 hours for check...