Solar-powered zero-fueled airplane ‘Solar Impulse 2’ on last leg of global journey

The solar-powered zero-fueled airplane ‘Solar Impulse 2’ took off from the Egyptian capital Cairo early Sunday on the final leg of its global journey which started over a year ago.

The aircraft is headed to Abu Dhabi, the place it began its trip in March 2015. It should take around 48 hours for Solar Impulse 2 to arrive there.

Solar Impulse has already traveled approximately 30,000km as part of its quest to complete the first round-the-world solar flight, powered only by the sun, with no fuel or polluting emissions.

The flight was originally scheduled to being on July 16. However, pilots André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard announced they decided to postpone the flight because of weather issues and the fact that Piccard fell ill.

On 22nd July 2016, Solar Impulse posted the following update on its blog:

“The Mission Control Center team has identified a weather window that could allow us to overcome the challenging high temperatures across Saudi Arabia and hopefully land in Abu Dhabi after 48 hours.

“For this, however, we need to be able to take off from Cairo! Conditions are tricky with winds challenging Si2’s limitations on the runway.

“We are therefore getting ready for an attempt, but there is a risk that we will need to postpone the flight at the last minute.

“As Bertrand Piccard says, “Success comes when you try one more time than the number of failures. And we will try until we succeed.”

Solar Impulse 2 – flights around the world:

Flight 1: Abu Dhabi to Muscat
Flight 2: Muscat to Ahmedabad
Flight 3: Ahmedabad to Varanasi
Flight 4: Varanasi to Mandalay
Flight 5: Mandalay to Chongqing
Flight 6: Chongqing to Nanjing
Flight 7: Nanjing to Nagoya
Flight 8: Nagoya to Hawaii
Flight 9: Hawaii to San Francisco
Flight 10: San Francisco to Phoenix
Flight 11: Phoenix to Tulsa
Flight 12: Tulsa to Dayton
Flight 13: Dayton to Lehigh Valley
Flight 14: Lehigh Valley to New York
Flight 15: New York to Seville
Flight 16: Seville to Cairo
Flight 17: Cairo to Abu Dhabi