Solar-powered plane breaks flight record crossing Pacific
A solar-powered plane has set a new record by completing a 56-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean. The Solar Impulse 2 began its journey in March in Abu Dhabi and completed it on Saturday in California. Backers of the project included chemical group Solvay, lift maker Schindler, power grid company ABB and Swatch’s Omega brand. The plane is powered by 17,248 solar cells that turn the propellers and also charge the batteries that enable the plane to fly at night. Solar Impulse 2 has an ideal speed of 28mph that can be doubled in strong sun and weighs 2.3 tons. Last December, it was announced that since 2004 the budget consumed by the project was around €170m.

A solar-powered plane accomplished a 56-hour, record-setting flight over the Pacific Ocean, flying by San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and landing in Mountain View, California late Saturday night.

“I crossed the bridge. I am officially in America,” said pilot Bertrand Piccard, as he guided the Solar Impulse 2 toward its landing after an extended journey around the world.



“Can you imagine crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on a solar-powered plane just like ships did in past centuries? But the plane doesn’t make noise and doesn’t pollute,” Piccard said a live video feed on the website documenting the journey.

“It’s a priority to link the project we have with the pioneering spirit in Silicon Valley,” he added.

The aircraft started its around-the-world journey in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. This is the ninth leg of the circumnavigation.

The trans-Pacific leg of its journey was the riskiest part of the solar plane’s global travels because there were so few places where the plane could make an emergency landing.

“It is more than an airplane,” Piccard later said in a celebratory statement. “It is a concentration of clean technologies, a genuine flying laboratory, and illustrates that solutions exist today to meet the major challenges facing our society.”

His partner, the company’s CEO André Borschberg, added: “Just imagine your energy reserves increasing during flight and available day after day! This is what we may be doing in our communities, our cities and our countries.”

After uncertainty about winds, the plane took off from Hawaii on Thursday morning and at one point passengers on a Hawaiian Air jet caught a glimpse of it, before speeding past.



Solar Impulse 2 had landed in Hawaii in July and was forced to stay in the islands after the plane’s battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan.

The team was delayed in Asia as well. When first attempting to fly from Nanjing, in China, to Hawaii, the crew had to divert to Japan because of unfavourable weather and a damaged wing. A month later, when weather conditions were right, the plane departed from Nagoya in central Japan for Hawaii.

The plane’s ideal flight speed is about 28mph, though that can double during the day when the sun’s rays are strongest. The carbon-fibre aircraft weighs about 2.3 tons.

The wings of Solar Impulse 2, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power the propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.