Abu Dhabi: The Solar Impulse-2, the first solar plane circumnavigating the world, is scheduled to land in Spain’s southern Seville airport early on Thursday.
The plane went through “a long night of turbulence” over the Atlantic, AFP reported on Wednesday. Still Bertrand Piccard, the pilot, continued on the challenging leg over the Atlantic, which started from New York’s John F. Kennedy airport on Monday.
“The initial hours during this challenging leg was perfect, though there were some unexpected weather conditions,” Andre Borschberg, the co-pilot of Solar Impulse-2 (Si-2) told Gulf News in a telephone interview on Tuesday from the Mission Control of the Si-2 in Monaco.
He said Piccard has kept himself energetic throughout his journey.
Piccard and Borschberg take turns as the pilot of the single-seat plane in each leg of the trip. Borschberg had piloted a 6,437-kilometre flight between Japan and Hawaii that lasted 118 hours, smashing the previous record for the longest uninterrupted journey in aviation history.
By around 1100 GMT on Wednesday, the aircraft, which is powered in the night sky by energy supplied by 17,000 photovoltaic cells, had completed three-quarters of its 6,000-kilometre (3,700-mile) flight across the Atlantic, an AFP report said on Wednesday.
“After a long night of turbulence and little sleep, I see the first light of the day,” Piccard tweeted earlier on Wednesday.
“Awake and enjoying the Atlantic even after 51 hours of flight. Exploration is always exhilarating,” he tweeted later, with a photo of a cloudy sky.
The voyage marks the first solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered aeroplane, and Piccard has been getting little sleep as he survives on short catnaps.
During his crossing, he has seen whales cavorting in the waters beneath the plane, a gorgeous full moon in the night-time sky, and more.
“You will not believe me, but to my right, I see an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. Check it out!” he tweeted a day ago.
No heavier than a car but with the wingspan of a Boeing 747, Solar Impulse is being flown on its 35,400-kilometre trip round the world in stages.
The plane, now on the 15th leg of its east-west trip, set out on March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and has flown across Asia and the Pacific to the United States with the sun as its only source of power. The plane is expected to complete its world trip in Abu Dhabi in early July.
