As the name suggests, Solar Impulse 2 is an aircraft that’s powered by solar energy. Obviously, it’s going to take a long time before commercial flight powered entirely by solar power is possible but this is a good initiative to show that it’s possible. Following multiple delays, Solar Impulse 2 has finally completed its flight across the Pacific, with pilot Bertrand Piccard flying 2,717 miles between Hawaii and San Francisco.
This isn’t the only flight across the Pacific that Solar Impulse 2 has completed. It already has the 5,061 mile trip from Japan to Hawaii under its belt.
On this recent journey the pilot had to cover some 2,700 miles between Hawaii and San Francisco, he could only take short naps during the 3-day trip, so it wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination.
Solar Impulse 2 will go around the world powered by nothing but solar energy. It’s going to continue down to New York by June this year and then make a 5-day straight trip to Europe. It will head to Abu Dhabi later to complete this mission.
The aircraft took off back in March 2015 and has since been achieving these little victories in the ultimate mission to fly across the world aided only by solar power.
Filed in . Read more about Solar Impulse. Source: solarimpulse