ABU DHABI // Solar Impulse 2 landed on Sunday in Mountain View, California, successfully completing the ninth leg of its journey round the world using only the power of the sun.
The Masdar-sponsored aircraft, piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, left Oahu’s Kalaeloa airport in Hawaii on Thursday evening and landed at Moffett Airfield at 10.45am UAE time.
“For the project, it’s the continuation of the round-the-world flight, it’s one of the three or four big legs, and we have two behind us, two in front, and it means we’re moving,” said Mr Piccard after touching down.
“It is more than an airplane, 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,” he said.
He also congratulated the team, saying: “Back on the ground with #Si2! Thank you #Monaco mission control centre, I couldn’t have done it without you”.
Before resuming its journey last week, Solar Impulse 2 had been grounded for nine months in Hawaii after suffering damage to its batteries during the previous leg of its odyssey.
The 4,523-kilometre trans-Pacific leg of the journey took just over 62 hours, and was described as the riskiest part of the plane’s global travels owing to the lack of emergency landing sites.
Among the highlights, on Friday, mid-flight and on the occasion of Earth Day, Mr Picard had a chance to speak with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and 175 heads of state, directly from the plane’s cockpit during a video conference with the United Nations in New York.
“I’m glad that you made it here,” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who greeted Piccard after he emerged from the cockpit. “It was a beautiful landing and we were right there watching.”
“So happy you could do this flight @bertrandpiccard, it demonstrates that your #futureisclean vision was right!”, tweeted Andre Borschberg, the co-pilot for the mission and co-founder of Solar Impulse, who was also there for the landing.
“This flight was a huge step in the adventure and Bertrand Piccard accomplished it like a professional pilot,” he said later.
Emirati Hasan Al Redaini is in Mountain View and is working with the Solar Impulse team as the plane continues its journey.
Solar Impulse officials said the flight broke several world records, including distance, speed, duration and altitude in the electric aircraft category, and altitude in the solar aircraft category.
The plane now waits to begin the 10th leg of its journey, on which either Piccard or Borschberg will fly about 2,000km to a yet-to-be-named destination in the mid-US. It is then expected to head to New York before crossing the Atlantic Ocean and arriving in Europe.
The mission began its journey in Abu Dhabi last March and is aiming to complete its solar-powered circumnavigation of the Earth this summer.
esamoglou@thenational.ae
