Flight path for Solar Impulse 2 is revealed

The solar plane will take off from Abu Dhabi in late February or early March and travel around the world using only alternative energy.

As part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, hosted by Masdar, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister, today inspected the Solar Impulse plane. Courtesy WAM

ABU DHABI // Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, the Swiss co-founders and pilots of Solar Impulse, revealed the flight path of Solar Impulse 2 on Tuesday at Al Bateen Executive Airport.

On display in an airport hangar, Si2 will take off from the capital in late February or early March and return from circumnavigating the globe in late July or early August.

“With our attempt to complete the first solar powered round-the-world flight, we want to demonstrate that clean technology and renewable energy can achieve the impossible,” said Mr Piccard, chairman of Solar Impulse.

It will be the first solar-powered plane to fly day and night, and will land in 12 locations around the world. In its attempt to fly around the world without using a drop of fuel, it will travel 35,000 kilometres.

After crossing the Pacific Ocean via Hawaii on an expected five-day journey, Si2 will fly across the continental US, stopping in three locations including Phoenix, Arizona, and New York.

“We know how to fly across continents, but we will have to learn how to fly over the oceans,” Mr Piccard said.

After crossing the Atlantic, the final leg will include a stopover in Southern Europe or North Africa before arriving back in Abu Dhabi.

The first part of the route includes stops in Muscat, Oman; Ahmedabad and Varanasi, India and Mandalay, Myanmar.

“The President of Myanmar even came to Switzerland to see us and see the plane and said ‘I will inform my population immediately so they can look forward to your coming’,” Mr Picard said. “It’s going to be one of the great moments.”

From Myanmar, the Si2 will fly parallel to the Himalayas and north to China, stopping in Chongging before flying an expected 20 hours on to Nanjing.

There the team will have an extended stay, preparing for their first ocean crossing. They will organise lectures in schools and universities on solar energy.

“One month in China is very important for us to spread our message,” Mr Piccard said. “The Chinese Science and Technology academy want to organise one day of education for 80 million children on clean technology.”

Speaking of the cross-oceanic legs of the flight, Mr Borschberg said: “You have to realise we have no experience flying for so long. There is one seat to the plane, there are two pilots, so we need to switch.

“It’s a little difficult to switch in the air which means we will make stopovers.”

He added that the stopovers would be “important moments to communicate our message to the governments, the media and the schools and universities in every country”.

The pilots said that their stopover dates are still tentative because of the inaccuracy inherent in long-term meteorological predictions.

“We will wait until we have the right weather window, thinking that when you are in China, we will predict the weather on the other side of the Pacific five-six days in advance and we know the weather forecast five-six days in advance is quite unreliable,” Mr Piccard said.

Because the plane uses solar energy, sunlight is the main determination of flight path. The pilots and their team of 80 technicians will alter and adjust plans according to weather even in mid-air.

“Maybe waiting somewhere, maybe moving south or north, but knowing that we have no limits due to fuel, as we can fly almost unlimited, we have different strategies to make it possible,” Mr Berschberg said.

For the pilots, their mission is to demonstrate how clean technologies and a pioneering spirit can change the world.

“With our attempt to complete the first solar-powered round-the-world flight, we want to demonstrate that clean technology and renewable energy can achieve the impossible,” Mr Piccard said.

The adventure will take approximately 25 flight days spread over five months. Speeds are estimated to be between 50 kph and 100 kph.