Tag: Solar Impulse

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse visits Wright Brothers’ hometown

Solar Impuse landing
Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard holds up a model of the Wright Flyer as the Solar Impulse 2 airplane descends toward its landing in Dayton with its lights on. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

The Swiss-built Solar Impulse 2 airplane continued its fuel-free, round-the-world odyssey today with a nearly 17-hour flight from Oklahoma to Dayton, Ohio, home of the Wright Brothers.

The solar-powered plane took off from Tulsa International Airport before sunrise at 4:23 a.m. CT (2:23 a.m. PT), and landed after dark at Dayton International Airport at 9:56 p.m. ET (6:56 p.m. PT).. In between, Solar Impulse 2 swept over a wide swath of America’s heartland, including Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

After landing, pilot Andre Borschberg was met by two relatives of the Wright Brothers, great-grandnephew Stephen Wright and great-grandniece Amanda Wright Lane. They gave models of the Wright Flyer to Borschberg and Solar Impulse’s other co-founder, Swiss psychiatrist-adventurer Bertrand Piccard.

“It’s a dream to come here, and we made it,” Borschberg told the Wrights.

Piccard noted that Dayton served as the base for Orville and Wilbur Wright’s airplane-building operation more than a century ago. “People told the Wright Brothers, and us, what we wanted to achieve was impossible,” he said. “They were wrong.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse makes Rocky flight to Oklahoma

Image: Solar Impulse in Oklahoma
The Solar Impulse 2 plane lands in Tulsa, Okla.,, after an 18-hour flight. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

After crossing the Himalayas and the Pacific, the fuel-free Solar Impulse 2 plane overcame the Rockies on May 12 during the Arizona-to-Oklahoma leg of its round-the-world odyssey.

“As you can imagine, flying over the Rocky Mountains is a challenge for an aircraft like Si2,” the Solar Impulse team said in a blog post. “But perhaps not for the reasons you would expect.”

The altitude wasn’t the biggest concern, although pilot Bertrand Piccard used an oxygen mask to cope with altitudes ranging up to 22,000 feet. Rather, it was the weather. Solar Impulse 2 is designed to soak up enough sunlight during the day to keep flying during the night, but it doesn’t do well during cloudy and stormy weather. That’s just the sort of weather that tends to build up during this time of year in the Rockies.

May 12 provided a window of opportunity for Piccard to make his way over the mountains in northern New Mexico and head eastward. Until this week, the plan was to stop over in Kansas City, Mo., but the Solar Impulse team said “we had to find a different solution” due to difficult weather conditions over the Kansas plains. So Piccard targeted Oklahoma’s Tulsa International Airport instead.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse hops from California to Arizona

Image: Solar Impulse
The Solar Impulse 2 plane comes in for a landing in Phoenix like a UFO. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

A solar-powered ultralight airplane called Solar Impulse 2 landed in Phoenix tonight after a nearly 16-hour flight from California’s Silicon Valley, finishing up another leg of its environmentally friendly round-the-world odyssey.

The odyssey has been proceeding for more than a year, with occasionally lengthy stopovers. But making time is not the point: If Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg wanted to get to Phoenix quickly, he could have taken a commercial jet flight from San Jose in less than two hours.

Instead, Borschberg lifted off from Moffett Airfield, near San Francisco, at 5:03 a.m. PT. He landed at Phoenix Goodyear Airport at 8:55 p.m. PT (MST) amid gusty winds. The plane was quickly brought inside its hangar for protection.

“It’s more difficult to handle the airplane on the ground than in flight,” Borschberg said jokingly to the crowd that turned out to greet him at the airport. “That’s the reason why we stay so long up there.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
Uncategorized

Round-the-world solar plane lands in California

Image: Solar Impulse 2 plane and Golden Gate Bridge
Solar Impulse 2 flies over San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

Two and a half days after setting out from Hawaii, pilot Bertrand Piccard made a picture-postcard arrival in California tonight aboard the fuel-free Solar Impulse 2 airplane.

“Thank you for your welcome!” he told well-wishers who gathered at Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, Calif.

The landing at 11:45 p.m. PT was marked by a bit of turbulence, but nothing Piccard couldn’t handle. “The touchdown is a little bit stronger than I would have expected,” he acknowledged.

This week’s 2,400-mile nonstop trek was the second-longest leg of what’s expected to be a 22,000-mile round-the-world flight, the first ever done with a solar-powered aircraft.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse is back on round-the-world trek

Image: Solar Impulse departure
Solar Impulse CEO Andre Borschberg flashes a thumbs-up as the Solar Impulse 2 airplane, piloted by Bertrand Piccard, rises from its runway in Hawaii. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

More than a year after its odyssey began, the Solar Impulse 2 airplane resumed its round-the-world, solar-powered trip in Hawaii today.

The ultra-lightweight plane took off at 6:18 a.m. Hawaii time (9:18 a.m. PT).

Solar Impulse began the trek in March 2015, taking off from Abu Dhabi and making stopovers in Oman, India, Myanmar, China and Japan. It got as far as Hawaii last July.

That five-day, five-night nonstop flight across the Pacific to Hawaii took a heavy toll on the plane’s batteries. The system overheated, and it took several months to make the repairs. The team also had to wait for reliably good weather to return.

Now the $150 million project has gotten off the ground again.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse gets set to return to the air

Image: Solar Impulse 2
The Solar Impulse 2 airplane is ready to fly from Hawaii to California. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

More than a year after the odyssey began, the Swiss-led Solar Impulse project is ready to resume its round-the-world, solar-powered airplane flight in Hawaii on April 21.

Takeoff is set for 3 p.m. GMT (8 a.m. PT, 5 a.m. Hawaii time), the team tweeted.

The ultra-lightweight Solar Impulse 2 airplane started out on its trek from Abu Dhabi in March 2015, made stopovers in Oman, India, Myanmar, China and Japan, and got as far as Hawaii last July.

The five-day, five-night nonstop flight across the Pacific to Hawaii took a heavy toll on the plane’s batteries, however. The system overheated, and it took several months to make the repairs. The team also had to wait for reliably good weather to return.

This week, the leaders of the $150 million effort said it was finally time to fly.

Get the full story on GeekWire.