ABU DHABI // After more than two days in the air, Solar Impulse 2 landed in Egypt on Wednesday, the penultimate stop on the aircraft's world tour.
The solar-powered plane completed the first solo transatlantic flight to land in Spain last month and will continue from Cairo to Abu Dhabi, where it began its round-the-world journey in March last year.
Upon departing from Spain on Monday, the flight path took Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg across the Mediterranean, crossing more national airspaces than on any other leg of the trip,
including those of Tunisia, Algeria, Malta, Italy, Greece and Egypt.
Its support crew cheered as the plane, no heavier than a car but with the wingspan of a Boeing 747, touched down.
"It was fantastic, everything worked well," said Mr Borschberg, who flew over the pyramids at Giza - before landing at 9am UAE time on what was his final flight at the controls of Solar Impulse 2.
He emerged from the cockpit and hugged Bertrand Piccard, with whom he has taken turns flying the plane around the world.
Solar Impulse is being flown on its 35,400-kilometre trip around the world in stages, with Mr Piccard and his Swiss compatriot Mr Borschberg alternating at the controls of the single-seater aircraft.
The plane was received at Cairo airport by Egypt's minister of civil aviation, Sherif Fathy, UAE Ambassador, Juma Al Junaibi and Yousef Baselaib, senior adviser to the chief executive of Masdar, one of the project sponsors. "Solar Impulse's arrival in Egypt is further proof that clean energy is a viable technology in the realisation of a more sustainable future," said Mr Baselaib.
Mr Piccard, 58, who flew the plane across the Atlantic in a 6,765km journey said it was a new era for energy. “I love to fly this plane because when you’re in the air for several days you have the impression of being in a film of science fiction.
“You look at the Sun, you look at your motors, they turn for days and for days, no fuel and you think: ‘That’s a miracle. That’s magic.’ It is actually the reality of today. This is what we can do with these new technologies. It’s a new era for energy.”
The flight from New York to Seville took 71 hours, flying through the night with the energy stored in its 17,000 photovoltaic cells and the pilot taking 20-minute naps as the plane inched across the sky at about 48 kph.
“You need to train to make some exercise in the capsule, in the cockpit, because, otherwise, after several days you cannot move your legs and your arms any more,” Mr Piccard said.
Both pilots want to raise awareness of renewable energy sources and technologies with the project but Mr Piccard does not expect solar-powered commercial planes any time soon.
“There will not be passengers very soon in solar aeroplanes like ours, but there will be passengers very soon in electric aeroplanes that we will charge on the ground,” he said.
“On the ground you can charge batteries and you can have short-haul flights, maybe 500km, with 50 people flying in these planes,” in a decade.
On the next and final leg of the journey, which could take place as soon as this week, Solar Impulse will be piloted by Mr Piccard, co-founder of the project.
“It’s been a long journey and of course the last flight will be bittersweet, but we have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Mr Piccard said.
nalwasmi@thenational.ae
* Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
