Pilots Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard have started a record-breaking attempt to fly around the world in a plane powered entirely by solar power in five months.
Solar Impulse-2 is a single seater solar powered plane with a wingspan of 72 metres, making it wider than a 747 jumbo jet. Its wings are topped with 17,000 solar cells and, to ensure it can fly at night, energy-dense lithium-ion batteries which will be of particular importance when the pilots attempt to cross oceans; a feat that could take up to 5 days.
It took off from Abu Dhabi, initially piloted by Mr Borschberg, and will skip from continent to continent and will stop at various locations so that the pilots (and the plane) can rest and so any required maintenance can be carried out. It will also be used to spread the message about clean technologies.
Bertrand Piccard, made famous for circumnavigating the globe in a balloon with Brian Jones in 1999, said, "I had this dream 16 years ago of flying around the world without fuel, just on solar power. Now, we're about to do it. The passion is there and I look forward so much to being in the cockpit."
All of us at Cedrec Towers wish the pilots and their team the best of luck, and hope that this is the beginning of brilliant things for clean technologies.
