Photo: thenycplug.com
Reading Time: < 1 minuteSolar Impulse 2 (Si2) – the solar airplane of Swiss pioneers Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg capable of flying day and night without fuel – landed in Phoenix Goodyear Airport, Arizona, with André Borschberg at the controls, on 2 May at 8:55pm local time (UTC-7) after taking off from the Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, California, the same morning at 5:03am local time (UTC-7).
The flight, that took 15 hours and 52 minutes and 745 miles (1’199 km) at a maximum altitude of 22’000 feet (6’706 meters) and average speed of 43,58 mph (70,15 km/h), is part of the attempt to achieve the first ever Round-The-World Solar Flight, the goal of which is to demonstrate how modern clean technologies can achieve the impossible. As soon as possible, weather permitting, Bertrand Piccard will pilot Si2 to the next stop-over and continue the crossing of the United States.