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THE Solar Impulse 2 aircraft completed a historic flight in its quest to circle the globe without consuming a drop of fuel, touching down gracefully in Hawaii on Friday after the most arduous leg of its journey.
The sun-powered plane, piloted by veteran Swiss aviator Andre Borschberg, took 118 hours — about five days — to make the voyage from Japan to Hawaii and landed shortly after dawn at Kalaeloa Airport on the main Hawaiian island of Oahu.
“Just landed in #Hawaii with @solarimpulse! For @bertrandpiccard and I, it’s a dream coming true,” Borschberg tweeted triumphantly after completing the most perilous part of the around-the-world odyssey.
Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard have been alternating the long solo flights and Japan to Hawaii — where it was Borschberg in sole control — was the eighth of 13 legs.
“Difficult to believe what I see: #Si2 in Hawaii! But I never had doubts that @andreborschberg could make it!” tag-team copilot Piccard wrote on Twitter.
“This flight to Hawaii is not only an aviation historic first, but also a historic first for energy and clean techs.”
The experimental plane landed a little after 16:00 GMT, and Borschberg, all smiles, emerged a short time later from the cockpit, later adorning a traditional Hawaiian flower lei and holding a celebratory bottle of champagne.
Sunlight glimmered on the horizon as the Solar Impulse ground crew burst into cheers and applause upon completion of the groundbreaking flight.
The 4,000-mile (6,500-kilometer) leg from Nagoya, Japan to Hawaii was not only the world’s longest solar-powered flight both in terms of flying time and distance, it also set the record for longest solo flight by time.
The whole trip from Japan to Hawaii took four days and 22 hours, with the Swiss aviator taking catnaps of only 20 minutes at a time to maintain control of the pioneering plane.
Borschberg easily beat the previous longest solo endurance flight, by Steve Fossett, who flew for 76 hours and 45 minutes in 2006 in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer.(SD-Agencies)
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