Solar Plane Starts Trip Across U.S.

Solar Plane Starts Trip Across U.S.

Washington: The first aircraft that can fly day and night powered exclusively by the sun's rays are taken off California in the first stage of an attempt to fly across the U.S. without using any fuel.The solar plane called Solar Impulse, San Francisco trigger Friday shortly after 6 am local time (1300 GMT) and is expected to land in Phoenix, Arizona, 19 hours after the first stop plane in the free haul flight fuel first.

The developers behind the flight Swiss tout the project as a way to demonstrate the opportunities offered by clean technologies, with the ultimate goal of flying around the world in a second-generation version of the aircraft Solar Impulse HB-SIB currently under construction.


The plane has a wingspan of 208 feet (63 meters) - equal to that of an Airbus A340 - but weighs about 1,600 kg of the same as an average car, according to the power used to propel developers.The plane is approximately equal to that used by the U.S. aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright's first powered flight in 1903, they say.

With an average cruise speed of about 55 kilometers per hour, the plane is scheduled to make stops in Dallas and St. Louis before moving to Washington in June and complete the mission to land on the city of New York in June or aircraft July.The is being treated by a psychiatrist and the ball aviator Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss national, who co-founded the project with his compatriot, the entrepreneur André Borschberg.

You should see this as being in 1915, when the pioneers were trying to do these first flights between countries - still can not cross the ocean, but an important step in the development of aviation, "said flight.The Borschberg front of narrow- has room for a single person, is heated and the pilot has to wear an oxygen mask due to the lack of pressurization.

A bath seat is integrated into the lonely cabin, but developers say the pilot should avoid eating foods high in fiber, a day before the flight to minimize the urgency of the call of nature during the long stretch in the air. "It's harder and perhaps less comfortable to fly through a passenger plane," said Borschberg.
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