Solar Impulse lands in Pennsylvania on record-breaking flight

WASHINGTON – Agence France-Presse

A handout picture obtained on May 25, 2016 from Solar Impulse 2 shows Solar Impulse as it took off from Dayton, Ohio to Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, with Bertrand Piccard at the control - AFP photo

The sun-powered Solar Impulse 2 aircraft landed in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania May 25, completing the latest leg of a record-breaking flight around the world to promote renewable energy.

After taking off from Dayton, Ohio early May 25, the plane piloted by Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard arrived at 8:49 pm at Lehigh Valley International Airport after a flight that lasted just under 17 hours.

On its next stage to New York’s JFK airport, scheduled for after May 30, Solar Impulse is expected to pass over the Statue of Liberty for a much-anticipated photo opportunity before landing at one of the world’s busiest airports.

“The mood is extraordinary,” Andre Borschberg, the plane’s alternate pilot, said on the ground just as Piccard prepared to land. “We are close to New York!”

The slow-moving, single-seat plane with the massive wingspan of a Boeing 747 has traversed much of the globe in stages since taking off March 9, 2015 from Abu Dhabi, with Piccard and Borschberg, a Swiss businessman, alternating in the cockpit.

The aircraft, clad in thousands of solar cells, was scheduled to depart Ohio on May 24 but the flight was postponed after its inflatable mobile hangar was damaged when the air fans holding up the structure temporarily failed.

However, the plane’s performance on May 25 was “like it should be” Borschberg said. “It’s a fantastic airplane.” 

The flight to Lehigh Valley was the 13th leg of Solar Impulse’s projected 16-leg east-west circumnavigation, traveling at average speeds of a mere 48 kilometers per hour.

“Fantastic moment,” Picard tweeted from the cockpit at one point during the flight. “I just got in touch with Air Traffic Control of New York Center. We’ve crossed the USA!!!!!” 

“The flight 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,” Piccard and Borschberg said in a statement.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, however.

The aircraft was grounded in July when its batteries were damaged halfway through its 35,000-kilometer circumnavigation of the globe.

The crew took several months to repair the damage caused by high tropical temperatures during a 4,000-mile flight between Nagoya, Japan and Hawaii.