Technology

Solar Impulse 2 airplane begins last leg of around the world flight

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Brian Galloway

The record-breaking around-the-world flight of Solar Impulse 2—a completely solar-powered airplane—has successfully re-started in Hawaii.

Earlier today, at 12:15 PM EST (9:15 AM PT), Solar Impulse rose into the sky with pilot Bertrand Piccard, beginning the ninth leg of the trip. From Hawaii, Piccard will fly solo to Mountain View, California—a journey that is expected to take about 62 hours (or about two and a half days), according to a Solar Impulse update. From California, Solar Impulse will spend a good amount of time crossing America, with stops in Phoenix, Arizona; another somewhere in the Midwest; and a last one in New York before hopping the Atlantic to a currently undetermined location in southern Europe.

From there, it will fly to the place where it all began—Abu Dhabi—making this the first ever solar-powered around-the-world flight.

Of course, that would not be the first record broken by the plane, which is loaded with 17,000 photovoltaic cells (for solar power) and several lithium-ion batteries to store energy so it can fly at night. Last July, Solar Impulse made it to Kalaeloa, HI after a grueling nonstop flight from Nagoya, Japan, which took nearly five full days—a 5,100-mile (8,200 km) journey that smashed the world record for longest solo non-stop flight without refueling. The previous record, held by American Steve Fossett, was 76 hours and 45 minutes; Swiss pilot André Borschberg now holds the record at 117 hours and 51 minutes.

Obviously, this was the longest leg Solar Impulse had endured, and during the trip, over-insulation led to the batteries overheating and becoming irreparably damaged.

Given the length of time it would take to fix the plane, the window in which the weather would be suitable for the roughly three day trip to the continental United States would have been closed by the time everything was all set, and so they gave Solar Impulse a well-deserved break until the weather became favorable again in April or May.

Then, just yesterday—293 days since Solar Impulse landed in Hawaii—the team got the window they were looking for.

With some of the longest and most dangerous legs behind them, it looks like smooth sailing (flying?) from here. Best of luck to Pilot Piccard!

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Image credit: Solar Impulse