Sabrina Toppa has an article in Time about the first solar-powered flight around the world:
The world’s first round-the-world trip on a solar-powered plane got under way with the initial leg from Abu Dhabi to the Omani capital of Muscat.
Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will pursue a record-shattering five-month journey, spanning just over twenty thousand miles across several continents and two oceans, while using zero conventional fuel.
The lightweight construction of the Solar Impulse-2 (photo)— weighing a mere two tons— combined with a wingspan lined with seventeen thousand solar cells, makes it the first solar-powered aircraft capable of flying during both day and night.
“I am confident we have a very special airplane, and it will have to be to get us across the big oceans,” Borschberg told the BBC.
The pilots have undergone rigorous preparation drills, and will forgo all sleep longer than twenty minutes while airborne, practicing yoga and self-hypnosis to cope with their airborne ordeal. (Some stints will involve flying continuously for five days.) Rest stops will be spent advocating for their clean-technology campaign.
“I had this dream sixteen years ago of flying around the world without fuel, just on solar power,” said Piccard. “Now we’re about to do it.”
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