Flight Set Four FAI World Records

Solar Impulse 2 successfully completed the world’s first solar-powered flight across the Atlantic on June 23, 2016, establishing a world first and setting four FAI world records.

The plane, which was piloted by Dr Bertrand Piccard during its record flight across the Atlantic, took off at 2:30 a.m. local time from New York on June 20, 2016. After almost exactly three days in the air, it landed at Seville International Airport in the south of Spain at 7.38am local time.

It had flown for 71 hours and 8 minutes at a height of up to 8,531 meters (approx. 28,000 feet), covering a total distance of 6,765 km (approx. 3,653 nm) – a straight-line distance of 5,851.3 km (approx. 3,160 nm) between the two points.

The Solar Impulse 2 team set four FAI world records for the flight. Those are:

• Distance, in the Electric-Powered Aeroplane category: 5,851.3 km (approx. 3,160 nm)
• Distance along a course with pre-declared waypoints, in the Experimental and New Technologies / Solar-Powered Aeroplane category: 5,851.3 km (see above)
• Speed over a recognised course, in the Electric-Powered Aeroplane category: 80.6 km/h (approx. 43.5 knots)
• Altitude, in the Electric-Powered Aeroplane category: meters (approx. 28,000 feet)

The team had hoped to land in Paris, to echo the historic transatlantic flight of pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1927. However, bad weather meant the flight-plan was re-routed south and Seville was chosen as the safest option.

After landing in Seville, the Solar Impulse team said: “The transatlantic flight [was] powered only by the sun, confirming Solar Impulse’s vision that clean technologies and renewable energy can achieve the impossible,” the team said following the flight.

Dr Piccard said: “With this transatlantic flight our aim is to inspire the adoption of clean technologies everywhere,” Piccard said at the time.

The landing in Spain was welcomed by the Eagle Patrol of the Spanish Air Force.

The transatlantic flight was the 15th leg of the Solar Impulse 2 project to fly around the world in the revolutionary solar-powered plane. After two more legs – Seville to Cairo and Cairo to Abu Dhabi – it completed the journey on 26 July 2016 after 42,000 km in the air.   

(Source: FAI news release. Image from file)

FMI: www.fai.org