Solar Impulse Touches Down In China

Will the fuel-free Solar Impulse change air travel in the future? Perhaps to a certain extent, but to see a jet airliner run on solar power alone while carrying a few hundred people is still impossible – at least for the moment. Still, we have word that the Solar Impulse has just completed the fifth leg of its flight that is set to bring it around the whole world, and hopefully it will not take 80 days to do so.

The Solar Impulse with Bertrand Piccard at the controls, managed to successfully touch down in Chongqing in China right after 17:30 GMT. It left Mandalay in Myanmar approximately 20 hours before that, and the game plan is to make one of the shortest stops over in Chongqing prior to making its way to Nanjing in the east of the country, but they had to throw that particular route out of the window due to concerns of the weather.

It seems that the team will now take a break until a window of opportunity opens up within this coming week. Once they have arrived at the east coast of China, the Solar Impulse team will need to prepare themselves to make their way across the ocean, where it is touted to take up to a gruelling five days and five nights before touching down at Hawaii. Good luck!

Edwin Kee
Categories: Green, Transportation
Tags: solar impulse