Solar-powered plane lands in China
Print Edition
SOLAR Impulse 2 touched down in China early yesterday, completing the fifth leg of its landmark circumnavigation of the world powered solely by the sun.
With pilot Bertrand Piccard at the controls, the revolutionary plane landed in the southwestern city of Chongqing at 1:35am after a 20-hour flight from Myanmar, its vast wingspan lit up by rows of lights.
The plane, with its 72-meter wingspan, looked like a massive kite in the sky as it hovered above Jiangbei International Airport before slowly descending for a smooth, quiet landing on the runway.
Airport staff then helped push the plane to a hangar, demonstrating the aircraft’s light weight.
The Swiss-made plane weighs 2,300 kilograms, roughly the weight of a car, and travels at more than 100 kilometers per hour. It’s powered by 17,248 solar panels installed on both sides of the wings and has zero emissions.
The plane had been expected to make a brief stop in Chongqing before heading for Nanjing, about 300 kilometers from Shanghai, but that stage was delayed due to weather and safety concerns, with the team now expecting to stay a few days while they wait for conditions to improve.
A transport plane with about 17 tons of supplies and equipment for the Impulse 2, including solar panels and power generation units, arrived in Nanjing last night.
“We are tired but we are still very, very happy to be in Chongqing,” said mission engineer Michael Anger on the project’s website.
“In China it was demanding, this flight, especially for Bertrand but also for the team preparing two flights in a row and then this afternoon cancelling the second flight due to bad weather in Nanjing.”
Piccard, one of the two Swiss pilots of the solar-powered plane, battled extreme cold as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius in the cockpit and the general unpredictability of flying above the mountainous Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan.
Most difficult flight
Flying at high altitude for most of the journey from Mandalay to Chongqing — 8,534 meters at its highest point — Piccard had to use additional oxygen on the 1,459-kilometer route.
The flight was the most difficult of the trip so far, Raymond Clerc, flight director for Solar Impulse, said in a video interview on the project’s website.
“China has become the top producer of wind and solar power in the world,” said Piccard, 57, who was the first to complete a nonstop balloon flight around the globe in 1999. On that occasion, he also passed over China.
“If you see the efforts the Chinese government has made in optimizing the efficiency of new energy, you will not be surprised the Solar Impulse 2 has drawn so much attention in China,” said Piccard, who co-piloted the plane with Andre Borschberg.
The team behind Solar Impulse 2, described on the mission’s website as the only airplane of perpetual endurance, able to fly day and night on solar power, without a drop of fuel, hopes to promote green energy.
The plane’s maiden global circumnavigation began in Abu Dhabi and will take in 12 stops, with a total flight time of around 25 days over five months.
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