The Solar Impulse 2 aircraft completed its round-the-world flight. Free Technical Library News

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Solar Impulse 2 completes round-the-world flight

26.07.2016

The first circumnavigation of the solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse 2 has come to an end. The device, having flown 42 thousand km in several stages, landed on July 26 in Abu Dhabi (UAE).

Solar Impulse 2 aircraft engines are powered by solar panels. In total, he has 17 thousand photocells. The device weighs like a car - about 2,3 tons, and has a Boeing 747 wing size. The cockpit is the size of a telephone booth. Swiss designer Bertrand Piccard built the first Solar Impulse aircraft in 2009, and in 2012 flew it around the world with his colleague Andre Borschberg. In March last year, pilots began a round-the-world flight on a new version of the aircraft - Solar Impulse 2. The flights are carried out to promote the idea of renewable energy.

The round-the-world flight began on March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi. The pilots took turns flying the aircraft. A total of 42 kilometers, landings on four continents, flights over three seas and two oceans. The longest flight was 8924 km from Nagoya in Japan to the Hawaiian Islands (USA) and lasted 118 hours - at that time Andre Borschberg broke the absolute world record for the longest continuous solo flight. In total, during the circumnavigation of the world, pilots officially broke 19 records.

Initially, Piccard and Borschberg hoped to complete the circumnavigation last year, but failed to catch good weather in the northern hemisphere in the summer. Then, when the batteries were damaged during the five-day flight, it was decided to interrupt the flights for 10 months.

The experimental design of the aircraft revealed a number of technical difficulties that made the craft sensitive to weather conditions. The flight from Cairo was very uneven, and Picard had to contend with turbulence over the hot sands of the Arabian Desert. In addition, pilots are forced to take oxygen tanks into the cockpit to breathe at high altitude, which only allows them to sleep for 20 minutes.

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