Solar Impulse 2 circles globe fueled by sun power

Solar Impulse 2 has successfully completed a trip around the world without using a drop of conventional fuel, depending only on solar power. Image Screencapped from @solarimpulse

Solar Impulse 2 has successfully completed a trip around the world when it landed at its starting and end point in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, July 26, using only solar power.

The plane traversed 40,000 kilometers around the globe without a single drop of fuel consumed. Solar Impulse 2’s only power source was the sun. Stops were made in airports across Europe, North America and Asia to allow pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg to rest as well as take turns in flying the plane, according to The Verge.

Solar Impulse 2 is wider than a Boeing 747 and has a wingspan of 236 feet (72 meters). It utilized 17,000 photovoltaic cells to harness power from the sun and coasted through the skies in a leisurely 30 miles per hour.

Co-founders and pilots of Solar Impulse said their accomplishment was designed to prove “that clean technologies can achieve the impossible” and that it was “not just a first in the history of aviation, but also a first in the history of energy.”

Certainly their flight is somewhat synonymous to the first flight of the Wright brothers’ flyer in Kitty Hawk in that it is a step into the future of powered flight.  Alfred Bayle