ABU DHABI // Anticipation is building over whether Solar Impulse 2 will finally take off from Egypt to Abu Dhabi in the final leg of its historic round-the-world fuel-free flight.
The sun-powered plane has been grounded in Cairo since it landed there on July 13. It was due to take off last week but the flight was suspended last minute due to poor weather and pilot illness.
But as co-pilot Bertrand Piccard appears to have bounced back to health and favourable weather conditions are on the horizon, Solar Impulse is tentatively scheduled to depart for its final flight at 3am on Sunday UAE time.
"The MCC [Mission Control Centre] team has identified a weather window that could allow us to overcome the challenging high temperatures across Saudi Arabia and hopefully land in Abu Dhabi after 48 hours," the crew wrote on solarimpulse.com.
“For this, however, we need to be able to take off from Cairo! Conditions are tricky with winds challenging Si2’s limitations on the runway. We are therefore getting ready for an attempt but there is a risk that we will need to postpone the flight at the last minute.”
Solar Impulse, which began its journey in Abu Dhabi in March last year, has flown to 16 destinations around the world.
“After experiencing the most humanly challenging flight last year with André’s [Borschberg, the other co-pilot] five day and night flight, this leg will definitely be the most technically challenging on this round-the-world mission,” the MCC wrote. “Our provisional take-off from Cairo, Egypt, to Abu Dhabi, UAE, will be at 11.00PM UTC on July 23 and 1:00AM CEST, 7:00PM EDT on July 24. We are likely to have to adapt timings - so, as always with Solar Impulse, stay on your toes.”
A live stream of the flight, along with daily programming, can be viewed at solarimpulse.com.
newsdesk@thenational.ae
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From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
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