Sun-powered plane’s global goal
Aviator hope to fly non-stop round the world
Published:
A SOLAR-POWERED plane which its inventor hopes will lead to a non-stop, round-the-world flight was unveiled yesterday.
Solar Impulse has the wingspan of a Jumbo jet but the weight of a small car.
Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, 51, who in 1999 co-piloted the first round-the-globe non-stop balloon flight, said: “Yesterday it was a dream, today it is an aeroplane, tomorrow it will be an ambassador of renewable energies.”
The plane will have test flights over the next two years, and based on their results a new version will be constructed for the big event in 2012. “It will be like the Wright brothers,” said Mr Piccard, who comes from a long line of adventurers.
His late father, Jacques, plunged deeper beneath the ocean than any other man, and grandfather, Auguste, was the first man to take a balloon into the stratosphere.
